Brown seeks improved 24-hour care

The Chancellor said the NHS must "do better in the future" and there was a need for improvements to how patients accessed care.

An investigation found that Penny Campbell, a 41-year-old journalist, received sub-standard care before her death from multiple organ failure. She died in March 2005 after consulting eight doctors over the course of four days.

A year earlier a new GP contract was agreed which allowed 90% of family doctors to opt out of out-of-hours care. The cover became the responsibility of primary care trusts.

The report into Miss Campbell's case said the actions of a GP, together with problems in how the out-of-hours service was run, meant she was not offered appropriate care.

Camidoc, the GP co-op in north London which employed the doctors, had no procedures to ensure that notes on patients were easily available to all GPs. This was a "major system failure" and a direct factor leading to Miss Campbell's death, investigators said.

It said six GPs provided Miss Campbell with a "reasonable standard" of care but one, named as Dr Chuah, did not adequately explore her symptoms to see if she had an acute illness. A transcript of his conversation with Miss Campbell shows that, when she checked with him that it was "not anything serious", he replied that if it was more serious, she would be a lot more sick and "wouldn't be talking to me like this".

The investigation found that the care offered by an eighth GP, Dr Bengi Beyzade, could not be adequately assessed in retrospect.

Camidoc said the six doctors cleared of wrongdoing would be able to go back to out-of-hours work while two others may be able to carry on after a review.

Angus MacKinnon, Miss Campbell's partner, said Dr Chuah should be struck off and the decision to allow him and Dr Beyzade to possibly carry on with out-of-hours care showed a "total lack of accountability."