A former construction worker who “went into the doctor’s with a cold and came out with cancer” is one of the first people in the country to try a new drug that could prolong his life.

Stewart Cameron, 63, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the end of last year and immediately put onto a drug called pembrolizumab, which claims to fight the disease more effectively and with fewer side effects.

The grandfather was able to access the potentially life-changing drug before it was available on the NHS thanks to a government scheme aimed at helping people with serious illnesses.

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Mr Cameron receives the intravenous treatment for just over an hour once every fortnight at Darent Valley Hospital and feels tired for two days but hasn’t lost his hair or been sick, symptoms many people experience with established cancer treatments.

Since his diagnosis in October, Mr Cameron has seen improvements in his condition.

Speaking about the moment he was told he had a terminal illness, he said: “I went into the doctor’s surgery with a cold and came out with cancer. I’d had the cold for four weeks.

“The doctor was so straight with me. He said: ‘The good news is it’s not throat cancer.

“The bad news is it’s lung cancer and it’s terminal. We’ve got to get you straight into treatment.’

VIDEO: Stewart Cameron is trying to remain positive after his diagnosis

“When he first said it I didn’t know what to think. I just sat there going ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’. It took about a week for it to sink in just how bad it was.

“The tumour is near my lymph nodes so they can’t operate.”

One of the worst parts, he said, was finding a way to tell his partner of six years, Brittany Armstrong.

The pair now take each day as it comes and are still planning for the future with a theatre trip, hotel stay and barbecue booked for August.

Mr Cameron, originally from Scotland, continued: “I’ve always been told I’m one of those guys that’s got a happy-go-lucky attitude. I try not to let it bother me. I don’t want it to bring me down.

“It’s never been said how long I’ll live. I asked my family doctor and he said ‘Look, I could tell you a month or I could tell you six months, I just don’t know.

"My voice is a hell of a lot better than it was. A few months ago I was squeaking all day and now it’s starting to come back. I can’t get used to hearing my voice like this though, it doesn’t sound like me, I had a loud voice before.”

Mr Cameron’s walks with a stick as he gets out of breath but “apart from that I feel fine,” he added.

Despite the cancer being stage three, the tumour has not grown since he started taking pembrolizumab, according to his medical team.

He has nothing but praise for the “brilliant” staff at Darent Valley, adding: “From the receptionist to the nurses to the doctor, they’ve all been fantastic.”

Mr Cameron, who lives in Priory Road, Dartford, was a heavy smoker for 45 to 50 years and also worked in dusty environments as a digger driver.

He initially trained for the Merchant Navy at the Sea Training College on Chalk Marshes in the early 1970s before travelling the world as a waiter then a cook and baker, including on the QE2 ocean liner.

During a stint as a taxi driver in the 1980s he received a police bravery award for catching a robber who stole an elderly woman’s handbag.

He eventually went into construction but was forced to give up his career after his diagnosis because the medication he is on makes it unsafe to operate machinery.

He admits he still smokes but has significantly cut down from two packs a day to one that lasts him a few days.

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The early access to medicines scheme (EAMS), which Stewart Cameron was given the pembrolizumab under, aims to give patients with life-threatening or seriously debilitating conditions access to medicines that do not yet have a marketing authorisation.

From June the drug has been available on the NHS since being recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Gary Middleton, professor of medical oncology at the University of Birmingham, said: “This is fantastic news for those people with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread. For the quarter of patients which are suitable for first-line pembrolizumab, it significantly improves survival without significantly impacting the quality of life of patients.

"The study that NICE’s decision is based on represents a real milestone in the management of the disease, and NICE’s decision means that people are now able to access pembrolizumab at the point that is right for them, thus leading to better patient outcomes.”

NICE’s decision was influenced by a study of more than 300 patients carried out by American-based global bio-pharmaceutical company MSD, which found “pembrolizumab reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50% compared to chemotherapy”.

Pembrolizumab is an antibody that increases the immune system’s ability to detect and fight tumour cells.

Doctors can predict whether a patient will respond well to the drug by sending a biopsy of the tumour for testing. A high level of a protein called PD-L1 is a good sign.

Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK and more than 46,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2014. It is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the UK and only 5% of patients survive for 10 or more years in England and Wales.