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Man travels to US for second opinion on his cancer - but is told he actually has a heart condition and can't fly back

A man who was wrongly diagnosed with terminal cancer by the NHS travelled to America for a second opinion - only to be told he had a heart condition and could not fly back. 

David West, 70, was told he had just weeks to live after being diagnosed with liver cancer. 

But US doctors said his cancer was actually a serious heart condition - and said he was too ill to fly home. 

Waiting times for the procedures he needed were between four and nine months in the NHS, and American doctors told him it was too risky to wait that long.

The retired Army engineer ended up spending £250,000 on treatment and travel and spent almost three years convalescing before he was able to come home.

He says he went abroad after NHS doctors told him he could not have a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis

Instead he was given a form to claim end-of-life benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions.

This allowed him to claim Disability Living Allowance and Incapacity Benefit - a total of £800 a month.

But these were stopped were stopped because he was abroad for too long and he now faces losing his rented flat in Warminster, Wiltshire, where he has lived for 14 years. 

He said: "Being diagnosed with cancer was a huge emotional challenge.

"When somebody looks you in the face and says, 'You are going to die' you feel bad about it. You think, 'Strewth, what am I going to do now?'

"I wrote my will four or five times and changed it and so when I got to America and they told me I wasn't going to die I felt quite happy about it.

"But I felt angry that I had been misdiagnosed. Doctors are people I trusted implicitly and it completely shattered my faith in the NHS."

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust apologised for the misdiagnosis.

A spokesman said: "We recognize that clinicians should avoid giving life expectancy estimates to patients where the diagnosis is not confirmed.

"We are sorry for the anxiety that this has caused Mr West and have ensured that lessons learned from this have been shared with our clinical teams."