NHS trust apologises to widower after doctors missed wife's cancer diagnosis

'I was with someone I loved for 54 years. I was bereft, but you have to come to terms with it'

A man who lost his wife of 54 years after doctors failed to adequately diagnose and treat her cancer has been granted an apology by the NHS trust responsible.

Jane Ann Venus died of 'grade three' uterine cancer in 2014, leaving her husband Raymond, 80, to ask why the Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust failed to correctly identify the disease.

According to Mr Venus, his wife had been given an initial diagnosis of grade two cancer and was not given adequate treatment for nine months.

Staff did not review Ms Venus’s condition until her disease became terminal and she was only then offered support by the palliative care team.

After his wife died, Mr Venus complained to the local NHS ombudsman and said he “could not believe” what had happened to his wife.

“After 54 years of being married she was never ill and went to the gym and did all sorts,” he told the Press Association.

"She was a beautiful woman, everyone thought the world of her. I was devastated, I was with someone I loved for 54 years. I was bereft, but you have to come to terms with it.

“If we just help to save one person that would be something. I try and comfort myself by saying she wouldn't have liked the treatment anyway as she did not like hospitals.”

Mr Venus was paid £3,000 in compensation and the trust wrote to him to apologise for their failings, acknowledging that more could have been done to save Ms Venus.

Meanwhile Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Dame Julie Mellor has published a report detailing 100 complaints involving avoidable deaths and mis-timed hospital discharges.

Dame Mellor said: "Too many complaints are coming to us which could have been resolved more quickly by the NHS.

"When people pluck up the courage to complain they are all too often met with defensive and inadequate responses.

"Complaints need to be dealt with properly, so that people are given answers and to help prevent any failures from happening again."