A GP has won a negligence case after a patient claimed he failed to organise tests that would have allowed her cancer to be diagnosed earlier, improving her prognosis.

The Canberra-based doctor successfully argued that the patient’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma would not have been identified, even if he had referred her for further investigations when she first presented with leg pain.

The patient, now 56, had consulted the GP in October 2016, complaining of worsening left leg pain, according to an ACT Supreme Court decision published this week.

He recorded that the patient had scored the pain an eight out of 10 and that it had been present for about eight days.