Cancer-free father got news eight months late

Chris Nunns, 39, was seconds from having invasive surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary to remove skin tissue from his head.

But when a junior doctor read his notes, he discovered Mr Nunns should have been given the all clear for skin cancer eight months earlier when a biopsy confirmed an initial operation in June 2010 had successfully removed the cancer.

Mr Nunns, of Brighouse, is livid that his family and friends were left distraught for eight months, under the illusion that the cancer had spread.

He said: “I was on the table, about to be wheeled into surgery when a doctor turned to be and said ‘What are you doing here?’.

“I asked what he meant, thinking it was a bit of a distasteful thing to say to somebody with cancer.

“Then he explained that according to my notes, I should have been given the all-clear in July 2010.”

Mr Nunns, a security guard, wants answers about how such a vital piece of information was not given to him before he was sent back to the operating theatre in February this year and is fuming that a mix-up with his notes meant he was not told he was cancer free.

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS trust has apologised to Mr Nunns and said it is looking at how to improve the way in which patient notes are sent from hospital to hospital.

But Mr Nunns says he will never be able to get back those eight months he spent worrying about the non-existent skin cancer.

He said: “I didn’t want to tell my kids that I was going to have to have another more serious operation, because I didn’t want them to start asking questions and for me to have to use the word ‘cancer’.”

The Trust apologised and said that a review had been launched in an attempt to rectify the problem.