A cancer patient mistakenly told that her illness had worsened – making it terminal – has spoken of her anger and fears for others.

Maureen Wood descibed her treatment as “barbaric” after being told her grade three cancer had progressed – having been assured just hours earlier that she was fine.

Fortunately she is able to continue her treatment at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary – which would have stopped – after challenging what she had been told.

But the mix-up has prompted her to spread the word to ensure it doesn’t happen to others – and in the worst case scenario that a patient is told everything is fine when in fact it’s not.

“I believe the NHS has reached a new low,” the 74-year-old said.

“After many phone calls from myself and family members, they conceded they had made a mistake.

“The oncologist who I had seen just a couple of hours earlier admitted his mistake. What a way to tell a cancer patient that they were now terminally ill. Nothing short of barbaric.”

Mrs Wood, of Kingside Hill, near Silloth, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, known as HER2 positive, more than a year ago. She now sees an oncologist every three months and has a heart scan.

At her most recent appointment the oncologist discussed how she was responding to the herceptin medication and scheduled another appointment. But later that day she was contacted by Reiver House, the hospital’s cancer care unit, and told by telephone there was a residual amount of cancer left in the breast and the treatment wasn’t working.

Mrs Wood explained to the woman how she’d just seen the oncologist and been told otherwise.

“In other words I was terminal because I have grade three and if there’s still cancer in the breast that’s grade four, which is terminal,” said Mrs Wood, who suspects the oncologist got her records mixed up with another patient.

“Is it that these days the NHS is down so much that they tell patients over the phone that they’ve got terminal cancer?

“The whole thing doesn’t even bear thinking about.

“First of all I want an apology but I don’t want anybody else to go through this.”

As a result, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust said systems have been revised to prevent this happening again.

“We would like to apologise to Mrs Wood for any distress caused. We value all feedback from our patients and have reviewed the concerns raised,” said a trust spokesman. “We will be contacting Mrs Wood directly to discuss this further.

“North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust aims to ensure we provide high quality, safe and effective services for all our patients and we are undertaking every measure possible to ensure that we provide the best high-quality service.”

It is not the first time Mrs Wood has felt let down by the health service.

On December 13, 2015, she fell down the stairs and broke her hip and femur.

When she came round she couldn’t move.

She dragged herself across the floor to the phone and called her daughter, who phoned 999 as soon as she arrived at 7.12pm. The call was logged as Green Two, in which there are no national targets for response times.

After further calls three ambulances arrived together over an hour later.

“All this time I was lying in agony on the floor, while our pleas for help were ignored,” said Mrs Wood, who was taken to the Cumberland Infirmary and treated for 10 days.

A North West Ambulance Service spokeswoman said the call was originally prioritised as Green Two because of her non-life threatening condition but after further calls it was upgraded to a Red Two call and an ambulance arrived four minutes later.

She said: “We offer our apologies to Mrs Wood and her family as we understand that waiting for an ambulance can be distressing.”

When Mrs Wood was due to have an appointment at the Cumberland Infirmary under an urgent two-week cancer referral in January 2015, all but essential visitors were being told to stay away from hospital to help stop the winter vomiting bug spreading.

Having been diagnosed 20 years ago with breast cancer, she was positive it was back and couldn’t take the risk. She decided to use £25,000 of her savings to have a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery on London’s Harley Street.

“I knew I had to have this done. I knew it was very far advanced,” she said.

“I took the decision to go to London because the Cumberland Infirmary was full of disease, wards closed, operations cancelled. With impending delays in the theatres with the surgeons trying to catch up, and the available bed situation, I made that choice to try and save my life.”

When she got over the operation Mrs Wood was started on three months of chemotherapy.

Despite her negative experiences Mrs Wood praised the nurses at Reiver House commenting that they were “absolutely fantastic”.