A disabled woman fears she could have lost her thumb after doctors missed two severed tendons in her hand.

Alison Elliott suffered a large gash when a mirror she was cleaning fell down and struck her left hand.

The 47-year-old, who suffers from ME and weakness on her left side, was visiting a friend in Gillingham and went to Medway Maritime Hospital with her hand wrapped in tissue and a tea towel.

But she said staff in A&E failed to spot the true extent of her injury and, having X-rayed, cleaned and glued the wound, simply sent her home.

It was only when she went to Darent Valley Hospital that evening, concerned that the wound was still bleeding and the amount of pain she was in, that she learnt how serious it was.

Within days, Ms Elliott, of Elm Road, Dartford, underwent surgery to repair the damage at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex.

One tendon had been completely severed while a second was 95% severed. Ms Elliott also had 15 stitches to close the wound.

“I could have lost my thumb or hand and will be writing a letter of complaint” - Alison Elliott

She said she felt unwell on the train ride back to her home in Dartford so went to Darent Valley.

“The staff looked straight at it and said they could see the tendon was exposed and had been cut through,” she said.

Ms Elliott said the injured tendons would have been visible while she was at Medway Maritime and it was not something that only developed during her journey back home.

“I needed surgery for what I was initially told was just a superficial wound that was glued,” she said.

“I could have lost my thumb or hand and will be writing a letter of complaint.”

She had the stitches removed last week and the prognosis is good as long as she adheres to strict advice from the specialist reconstructive surgeons at the East Grinstead hospital.