Hospital pays £50,000 over failure to spot grandmother's tumour

The 69-year-old, who must now wear an external device connected to her abdomen, said she had been “passed from pillar to post” at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, after medics there failed to diagnose a return of a cancer of the uterus. She was eventually referred to St James’s Hospital in Leeds, where an enlarged tumour was discovered.

The patient, who has not been named, said: “I had numerous visits to my GP and the hospital and the doctors didn’t think anything was wrong.

“The surgeon at Leeds told me that if I’d been left any longer, it could have been fatal.

“The whole thing has been a torment and I thought my life was over.”

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Pinderfields Hospital, offered the compensation after court proceedings were initiated by the woman’s lawyers.

Sam Thompson, a law fellow at Hudgell Solicitors, said: “There is a certain irony in this case in that the Trust was responsible for the delay in her medical treatment, and also her legal action to resolve it.

“They could and should have made efforts to settle before court proceedings were required.

“After court proceedings were issued, the Trust made an offer to settle without preparing a written defence. They increased the cost to the public purse in this case.”

The Trust has been contacted for comment,