Doctor attacks NHS over Jade Goody's cancer

A Harley Street consultant who treated Jade Goody has questioned the NHS for allegedly failing to spot her cancer earlier.

Max Clifford, her friend and publicist, said Dr Ann Coxon, a doctor introduced by him to Goody last year, had been "very angry" over an alleged failure to spot her illness earlier.

"Her doctor was very upset and very angry with the way the NHS looked after her and failed to diagnose the cancer that was growing for such a long time," he said.

Dr Coxon, speaking in an E4 documentary entitled Jade: As Seen On TV, said she had advised Mr Clifford to pull Goody out of Big Boss, the Indian equivalent of Big Brother, as soon as possible.

She said she had immediately taken Goody to London's Royal Marsden Hospital for appropriate tests on her return from India.

Dr Coxon explained: "Max Clifford rang me when Jade was in Big Brother in India because he had heard from her doctor that a cervical smear, that was done when she attended simply to get her immunisation, had shown a cancer and he wanted to know if he had to pull her out of Big Brother and I said yes.

"As soon as Jade came back from India, I saw her and took her through various tests and got her to the right people at the Marsden.

"When she had an abnormal smear after her miscarriage it would be normal for the hospital to send a routine letter advising her to get in touch to have another smear and she failed to respond."

She added: "For some reason her cervix was never examined and she never had a cervical smear in spite of the fact that it was known she had had problems previously."

In an interview in September, Goody, who died on Mother's Day earlier this year, said she had no plans to sue the NHS hospital she claimed was late in diagnosing her illness.