A GRANDMOTHER wrongly given the all-clear from breast cancer said the mistakes made were ‘unforgivable’ and should never have happened.

Glenys Thompson, 59, was one of the women whose diagnosis was delayed after her cancer was not spotted at Accrington Victoria Hospital.

Mrs Thompson, of Barnoldswick, said the report’s recommendations were welcome but she found the catalogue of failings ‘appalling’.

She said: “You’re told you’re going to live, that you’re fine, that nothing’s wrong, but the next thing you’re told is that it is cancer after all.

“This review is good but it’s too late. We have had the stress of being misdiagnosed, the stress of cancer, of operations, of further screenings. It does not go away for us, for all of us that were misdiagnosed.

“It has changed my life. The NHS had to keep their eye on the ball. He didn’t have the latest qualifications, he wasn’t checked in his work and there were no appraisals. I think it is a disgrace.

“How could he go from one year to another without the right training in place?

"But my anger is directed at those who should have checked him.”

Another victim, Letitia Newhouse, 53, a mum-of-two from Sawley, has now won a paltry £5,000 for the failings at the breast screening unit.

She said: “Lessons have to be learned. I have been told that the tumour was there to see on the mammogram in the first place. Mistakes were made but they should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.”

MPs and health scrutiny councillors said that they had been left shocked at the levels of incompetence brought to light in the independent report into failings at the hospital trust.

Gordon Birtwistle, Burnley MP, said: “This is a scandalous situation and a damning indictment of the management of the hospital at the time.”

He said the report revealed “a culture where there was no checking to establish whether people were doing their job adequately.

“It costs little to check that someone is doing their job properly but the cost to the victims has been high.”

Graham Jones, Hyndburn MP, said: “For this to happen over such a long timescale is shocking.

“It is a disgrace that so many women have been put through this ordeal.

"But thanks to a lot of work over the past two years we now need to be confident that changes have been made and everyone can have confidence in the screening process now in place.”

Burnley’s health scrutiny councillor, Darren Reynolds, said: “The fact that he was not properly trained or assessed shows there was not proper management in place.

“It is unacceptable and a total failure of management. My concern is whether this sort of thing is still happening elsewhere.”