A MUM who suffered a string of obstacles waiting to get a cancerous mole removed said the problem came to a head when a message addressed to her was sent to another patient.

Serena Jacobs was diagnosed with a cancerous mole on her cheek at the end of January.

She was under the care of skincare service Concordia Specialist Care Services, which collapsed in May.

It meant Serena, from West Mersea, had to wait ten months before she had her mole removed, on November 7.

The first of the hiccups came when North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Colchester Hospital stepped in at short notice to pick up the workload.

There were at least 10,000 active patients from Concordia being dealt with at Colchester Hospital.

Her notes were mislaid during the changeover and her first appointment for an operation in August was cancelled as staff did not have the right equipment.

She was offered another appointment a couple of weeks later but was told two days before it had been cancelled again.

She first contacted the Patient Advice and Liaison Service in August but had not heard back from them until Friday.

She also found out on Friday a response from the clinical commissioning group had also been sent in error to another patient.

She said: “The letter said they were looking into the complaint and they were just blaming other companies.

“They kept blaming other suppliers. Why can’t they just say we messed up and we are sorry?

“I then received an email to say they had sent it on to someone else as well, but they retracted it.

“It’s not good enough.”

She is also still waiting to receive her six-week follow up appointment.

Dr Ed Garratt, chief executive for the CCG, said: “The CCG takes patient confidentiality very seriously.

“On this occasion an email was sent in error.

“This email was immediately and successfully recalled.

“In the interest of honesty and transparency we told Ms Jacobs this had happened.

“We apologise to Ms Jacobs and would be very happy to discuss the matter with her further if she has any concerns.

“We want to ensure this sort of incident does not happen again and have in place a robust information governance process.”