Patient’s information vanished after being registered as deceased

An elderly cancer patient has told of his shock after receiving a call from his local GP informing him he had been mistakenly registered as dead.

John Ashcroft was informed by his doctors in late July that he had been reported as ‘deceased’ on their system despite ‘quite obviously’ being alive.

The 73-year-old, who is in remission for prostate cancer, tried to log in to his hospital records but he and his wife Susan were ‘stumped’ to see access had been denied as ‘he didn’t exist’.

All his medical records and appointments had vanished which meant he had been unable to reorder his medication.

The worried couple – who admitted to finding the situation extremely ‘unnerving’ – were then forced to wait two weeks for his medical records to be restored.

Mr Ashcroft and his wife are still none the wiser on how the blunder happened and they are now concerned that he may be flagged up as deceased in other organisations.

The former NHS worker recalled: ‘I had a phone call on the Monday, which was a fortnight ago, saying that I had been reported as deceased.

‘It was a guy from IT calling to see whether I was deceased or not.

‘He said quite obviously you’re not, because you’re talking to me.

‘The guy said it would all be sorted in three hours and then a fortnight later, it still hadn’t been sorted.’

The former NHS worker is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer so was ‘shocked’ by what he had been told on the phone.

‘Because of the cancer I have been through, I had direct access to my notes and Sue went into them and nothing was there,’ he said.

His wife, Mrs Ashcroft, added: ‘We couldn’t log in.

‘It said he didn’t exist so I couldn’t log into the medication and I started to panic a bit because John was running really low on medication.

‘It all came to blows last week when we went to order the medication and they said we couldn’t order it.’

The cancer sufferer was told he was ‘no longer a patient’ and could not order the medication.

The couple escalated the matter to their local GP’s practice manager. They were registered with Island City Practice in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

Mr Ashcroft said his wife, who worked for the tech company IBM for 20 years, got straight on the case and tried to resolve the mishap.

‘I have to say, Sue has done all of the background work which I just wouldn’t be capable of doing,’ he said.

The 70 year old contacted the PCSE [Primary Care Support England], their local MP, and other organisations urging them to rectify the mistake.

After a two-week wait, Mr Ashcroft’s medical records were reinstated and he was re-declared as an alive man at his GP.

But, the grandfather is still worried about where else he may be registered as ‘deceased’.

‘We don’t know how far this has gone – I don’t think we’re ever going to know,’ he said.

Mrs Ashcroft added: ‘We found out on 22 July – but how long before that had it happened.’

Despite the medical problems now being resolved, Mr Ashcroft is worried about whether his pension and passport have been impacted – particularly as he and his wife are jetting off to Morocco, North Africa, in September.

‘We booked a holiday in September and I don’t know whether my passport’s still valid – we’re stumped,’ he added.

The husband said it will likely be a case of turning up at the airport and seeing what happens at border control.

They said the issue has weighed heavily on them over the last few weeks.

‘It’s been stressful, very stressful and very upsetting,’ Mr Ashcroft said.

‘Lots of tears from both of us – and really that’s all I can say.

‘We can joke about it, our sense of humour means we can do that but underlying…

‘[Our family] have all been very supportive.’

The couple share five children, five grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

Mrs Ashcroft added: ‘They just didn’t believe what we were actually telling them because you can’t even imagine it, you can’t make it up.

‘We always play pranks and jokes on our grandkids and they just thought it was a joke.’

Now, the couple are looking for answers.

Mrs Ashcroft, who was born in Yorkshire, continued: ‘We’re at a loss because we don’t want to come down hard on the person who did it all.

‘We want them to investigate, find out where in the country did it happen, and then there could be lessons learned.

‘We don’t know whether a death was reported, whether that was correct or whether someone had gone into the system and chosen the wrong name.’

Her husband added: ‘John Ashcroft is not an uncommon name.

‘But, a John Ashcroft for my address would be impossible.’

An NHS spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of an issue involving a civil death registration being incorrectly recorded against a patient’s medical record.

‘This was removed within three hours of it being reported to us and the patient was re-registered by their GP.

‘We send our apologies to the patient involved and would encourage him to contact us directly so we can explain further.’