The University Hospital of North Durham (Image: ChronicleLive)

A woman with terminal cancer said she was told her mastectomy wasn't, in fact necessary. Another, in her 30s, said she was told, incorrectly, that a cancerous lump was benign - only for the cancer to spread to her bones and become incurable.

A third County Durham woman waited 14 months to be told about options for breast reconstruction. She should have been given the option of one immediately following her own mastectomy.

And a fourth tells how she has been left bedbound after numerous issues during her own cancer care - including that it took nine attempts to take a biopsy. Devastatingly, she added how, after surgery, when complications arose, an NHS surgeon carried out a procedure without anaesthetic and was left w

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