A family are demanding answers after a mother-of-four’s cancer went undiagnosed for 10 months despite her seeing multiple doctors at the same surgery.

On Thursday, Anita Richardson was told she may have just weeks to live when an MRI scan revealed a tumour that had started in her lungs had spread to her spine.

Her children – Josh, 25, Ryan 24, Adam, 22, and Aley, 13, – sister Tracey Richardson, 49, and life-long friend Lee Phillips, 44, have been left reeling by the news.

Ryan said they just want to know how it was missed: “We just want answers. You only get one mum and we shouldn’t be going through this. My 13-year-old sister shouldn’t be going through this.

“My mum isn’t going to get to see her finish school, or see her grandchildren grow up.

"I knew something was there; I could feel it growing" - Anita Richardson

“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this.”

The 42-year-old grandmother-of-three, from Rochester, first went to her GP, Thorndike Surgery in Rochester, 10 months ago when she began to get pains in her shoulder.

Doctors suggested it was various things over the next few months, including a rotator cuff injury, which is damage to a group of muscles and tendons that surround the shoulder joint.

She said: “They didn’t send me for an X-ray. Then the pain spread further down my back, across my back into my other shoulder.

“I know myself and my body, I knew there was something there; I could feel it growing, feel the pressure of it pushing up.

“I begged for a scan but they didn’t listen to me. They said I had diabetes, it was the position I was lying in, and even that it was just in my head.”

The family said it wasn’t until she lost the sensation in her legs and saw a new doctor that she was finally taken seriously and immediately sent to Medway Maritime Hospital for a scan.

Her sister Tracey said: “She’s just been so seriously let down which in turn has led us to let her down. We’re left feeling very angry and very bitter. We just don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

Theresa Baker, practice manager at Thorndike Surgery, said: “We’re all extremely sad to hear Mrs Richardson’s diagnosis and appreciate the distress it’s causing her and her family but due to patient confidentiality, we cannot make any further comment.”