Dad-of-three diagnosed with brain tumour claims doctors 'missed it' for 12 years

A father-of-three who has been diagnosed with a brain tumour has claimed it was missed by doctors for 12 years.

Ben Jones, from Merthyr Tydfil, believes doctors at the Prince Charles Hospital failed to spot his tumour on multiple brain scans, first in 2010 and then 2014.

The 37-year-old decided to seek medical help this year after he started having up to 30 seizures a day with more recent episodes feeling like "mini heart attacks" , leaving Ben unable to speak or use his left arm.

The growth was identified on a further scan at the hospital in July, but doctors at a specialist care department in another hospital told him the tumour was visible in the first scan more than a decade ago.

The mass began in one part of the brain, but has since spread to three parts and he will undergo major surgery in October to remove as much of it as possible.

"My family has been affected more than me. My parents are in bits. My partner is in bits."

However, doctors said it is highly likely the cancer will regrow and will have to be managed for the rest of his life.

Ben said: "It was only then they were showing me the scans that dated back to 2010 that I realised Prince Charles [Hospital] had missed it for all this time. It is visible. I could see it, my partner could see it as well."

Ben, who has three daughters aged three, 11 and 15, said: "I've known for a while that there has been something wrong, but I was not expecting it to be that."

In the meantime, he has been forced to give up his driving licence and stop working as a railway site manager.

Luke, who has been friends with Ben since their early teens, wondered if he became addicted to painkillers because he was taking so many.

Doctors at Llandough told Ben that doctors in Prince Charles might have interpreted the mass on the scan in 2014 as a "mini stroke", but Ben said there was no mention of this at the time either. 

They also noted that in the same year doctors at Prince Charles Hospital left a referral note for Ben to have an MRI scan following the CF scan - but Ben says this was never mentioned to him and no appointment was ever made.

The cancer, which is stage 2, has grown considerably since 2014. Ben will be awake for the surgery in October. He will undergo radiotherapy after the surgery to further reduce the tumour's size.

Ben said: "It's going to come back, they said, 100 per cent it's going to come back. It's just going to be a case now of managing it going forward."

Explaining how he might have to give up driving - and therefore his job - again in the future, Ben explained: "I'm going to have to be assessed a year now from the operation, if everything is removed, in order to get my driver's licence back. If I have to have chemo or radiotherapy then, it's going to be another year from that date. So every time I have a treatment or something like that, it will keep setting me back a year. If I have a seizure, it'll go back a year."

"My family has been affected [more than me]. My parents are in bits. My partner is in bits." 

A GoFundMe page has been set up with a target of £6,000 for Ben's family, so they can survive the next few months without his income. Luke and a dozen other friends will be completing the Three Peaks Challenge in 24 hours to help raise the money.

The 37-year-old said: "He hasn't long bought the house, there are a lot of bills to pay, and obviously the mortgage doesn't stop. Before the operation, I just want to try and get him some money so he can pay some bills and relax a little bit - so he goes into the operation with a clear mind and not having to worry about where the next bill payment is coming from."

Speaking about his reaction to Ben's diagnosis, Luke said he thinks the fact the tumour was missed was "negligence and incompetence" rather than "human error".

He added: "It's just a nightmare, but we finally know that there is something wrong. I'm still trying to process it all. I'm just focussing on this challenge as a way of trying to deal with this." 

Prince Charles Hospital has been approached for comment. Llandough Hospital said it was unable to comment on individual patient cases.