EXCLUSIVE: Susan should still be with us today

Mother-of-three Susan Taylor died within 12 months of being finally told that she had the disease.

And four years later her husband, Graham, is still involved in legal action accusing staff at the Royal Bolton Hospital of being "negligent" over the death of his 47-year-old wife in 1997 from cervical cancer.

Mr Taylor, aged 53, of Yewdale Gardens, Breightmet, claims doctors failed to spot three abnormal smear tests between 1989 and 1995.

He says he is supported in his case by an independent expert, Dr John Smith, from the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, who retested the smear slides.

Dr Smith claims there were abnormalities on all three tests and that Mrs Taylor should have been called back for repeat smears within three to six months after her tests in 1989 and 1994.

A smear taken in 1995 should also have resulted in an immediate call back, Dr Smith claims.

Solicitors for the father-of-three are putting together a case claiming hospital staff were negligent when they failed to spot possible cancerous cell changes in the smear tests.

The hospital trust has now been issued a summons for a hearing still to be set at Manchester County Court.

Mr Taylor, who was married to Susan for 26 years, said: "My children have lost their mother and my grandchildren, a grandma. She lived for the kids.

"The speed of her illness was shocking. It took just 12 months from diagnosis to her death.

"I brought her home to die as soon as the doctors at Christie's Hospital told me that she wouldn't survive.

"I was heartbroken."

Almost four years later, Mr Taylor is continuing to wage a legal battle with hospital chiefs.

He is fighting for damages but says money will not bring his wife back.

The Sheffield-based consultant is backing Mr Taylor. Dr Smith said that the failure to report the three cervical smears as abnormal between 1989 and 1995 resulted in the failure to identify and treat early signs of a malignant tumour.

He also said that there was strong evidence of a possible cancer from the smear tests in 1995 which should have resulted in Mrs Taylor having urgent treatment.

Further reports have also claimed Mrs Taylor stood a 100 per cent chance of a cure if the cancer had been reported earlier.

Mrs Taylor was diagnosed in December 1996 after being referred to a gynaecologists by her GP.

Her smear tests had been routine check-ups, which every woman aged between 20 and 64 undergoes.

Mr Taylor said: "No amount of money will bring my wife back.

"I'm fighting for this to be heard in public."

A spokesman at the Royal Bolton Hospital refused to comment and would say only: "We are aware that the family is taking legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment at this stage."

Susan trusted the system

LIKE millions of women Susan Taylor went for regular smear test screening because she trusted the system.

She believed the tests would give her an early warning if she had cancer.

Yet, in December 1996, Mrs Taylor was told the devastating news that she had a malignant cervical tumour and was told she would need a hysterectomy.

Three cervical smear tests were taken at the Royal Bolton Hospital from 1989 to 1995. All three were apparently negative. Her family have since had these re-tested and now they believe they showed evidence of abnormality.

The mum-of-three battled for 12 months after she was diagnosed with cancer. However, she died aged just 47 despite intense chemotherapy.

Mrs Taylor had just become a grandmother for the first time when she went to her GP suffering from pains in her back, three weeks before she was told she had a tumour. Her GP referred her to a consultant gynaecologist at the Royal Bolton Hospital who diagnosed an advanced tumour. Surgeons where unable to perform the hysterectomy because they saw that the cancer had spread to a main vein in her stomach.

Mrs Taylor's only chance of long term survival was to undergo radical radiotherapy at Christie hospital.

In the summer of 1997, a CT scan showed that the cancer had spread.

In a last ditch attempt to save her, doctors recommended a course of intense chemotherapy, but despite this she died at home on December 20 1997.

Her devastated husband, Graham, who moved from their family home in Greenroyd Avenue, Breightmet to nearby Yewdale Gardens, said: "I didn't want her to die at the hospital. I brought her home. She was in a lot of pain but had the morphine.

"I nursed her solidly for three weeks before she died. I was heartbroken and so were her children."

Mrs Taylor was described as active woman who lived for her children, now grown up and living away from home.

Her husband said: "She had waited years for her grandchildren to come along, but she spent just a year with her first grandchild before she died.

"I strongly believe that Susan should still be with us today."

The Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust has been served a summons from the Manchester County Court but a hearing date has not yet been fixed.

The trust is being sued for a breach of duty for allegedly failing to recognise that the three smears were abnormal.

Dr John Smith,a leading expert in histopathology at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital, said: "Cervical cancer and cancer of the neck of the womb is the commonest cancer in women in most developing countries. Worldwide there are 900,000 new cases a year."

Dr Smith re-tested Mrs Taylor's three smear slides which were still on file at the Royal Bolton Hospital. He claimed that all three should have been reported positive.

Mrs Taylor's smear tests had shown evidence of abnormal changes since 1989, it is alleged.

Fact-file on cervical screening.

American George Papanicolaou first reported that tumour cells could be found in vaginal smears from women with cervical cancer in the early 20th century.

He tentatively suggested that this was a new opportunity for diagnosing cancer, but his paper received little enthusiasm.

Yet 15 years later, Papanicolaou published a paper on diagnosis of cancer by the smear test and the climate of opinion changed.

The new technique has been used to detect early cancer since the first screening clinic set up in Massachusetts in 1945.

Since then, countries worldwide have reported a reduction in cervical cancer deaths.

In August, the BEN reported a 47 per cent rise in the numbers of Bolton women undergoing cervical smear tests at the Royal Bolton Hospital following the tragic Coronation Street story line of Alma who died of cervical cancer following a clinical blunder.