My mum was terminally ill but still no one wanted to help.. it's a disgrace

Five-month wait for vital cancer treatment | Social workers deemed her fit to manage alone

- VIVIENNE AITKEN

A RETIRED nurse whose cancer spread and became incurable after she waited five months for treatment Islammed the NHS from her deathbed.

Struggling with advanced stages of cancer, Helen Storrie, 71, who died last week, was left without a proper care package, her family claim. The greatgrandmother, from Motherwell, was also kept waiting until May last year to begin treatment for stage four cancer, which had spread from her lungs.

The target time for treatment beginning is 31 days.

Helen, an NHS nurse for 40 years, believed her cancer worsened because of the delay in chemotherapy starting.

Nearing the end of her life, she told the Record: "I had 25 letters in the five months I waited, cancelling appointments or changing them.

"These delays cannot have helped my chances. I have been let down all the way since my cancer was diagnosed.

That's the NHS's thanks for all my years of service as a nurse." Helen's son Darran, 47, said the family were not happy with her end-of-life care.

On August 11, she called him in the early hours of the morning saying she was not feeling too well.

He said: "I could see a change in her within 10 minutes of being there.