A potentially-fatal lung condition has been misdiagnosed as a chest infection by doctors at the William Harvey.

Now retained fireman Danny Ayles wants to take court action against the NHS after he was sent home from A&E with just antibiotics.

Mr Ayles, 34, called the NHS 111 line after suffering from chest pains and shortness of breath earlier this month.

An ambulance was sent to his home in Linden Road and he was taken to the Ashford hospital.

After spending three hours in A&E, he was sent home with antibiotics for what doctors believed was a chest infection.

Still in pain the next day, he called work to let them know he wouldn’t be in.

“A paramedic came to my house, checked me over and give me more painkillers, which didn’t help me so that night I was back up the Harvey for a few more hours only to be told there was nothing they could do..." - Danny Ayles

Mr Ayles said: “I had a restless night’s sleep and I was still struggling to breathe so called work, but they could hear how bad I was so called an ambulance for me.

“A paramedic came to my house, checked me over and give me more painkillers, which didn’t help me so that night I was back up the Harvey for a few more hours only to be told there was nothing they could do."

As Mr Ayles lives alone in Ashford, he made the decision to travel to Hastings to stay with a friend. When he wasn’t feeling better, she took him to a walk-in doctors who said he needed to return to A&E straight away.

He was admitted to the Conquest Hospital, in St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex, where test results revealed Mr Ayles had a blood clot in his lung and pneumonia - both conditions are life threatening.

My Ayles said: “I think it is disgusting and a disgrace how the Harvey have doctors that missed that.

“I’m going to take this much further. I think it’s a joke.

“I’m thinking of taking court action to sue them as this is a serious matter and I want to know why I wasn’t treated better. How can they have medical doctors that can’t even do the tests right?

“I’m so upset about this as that’s my local hospital and I had to go somewhere else to be looked after.

“I want answers. This could have been dealt with at the Harvey but it hasn’t.

“I called the complaints department but all I got was an answer phone recording so left a message to call me ASAP.”

Mr Ayles, who has made a formal complaint against the trust, has been written off work for two weeks and is on antibiotics, painkillers and a blood thinner.

A spokesman for the Trust said: "We are sorry to hear of Mr Ayles' experience at Ashford's William Harvey Hospital.

"We take all complaints very seriously and are currently investigating this one fully. It should be noted that diagnosis of conditions like this can be complicated.

"Antibiotics were given as the original symptoms suggested a chest infection.

"When Mr Ayles went to the hospital in Hastings he would have been able to have told doctors he had already been on a course of antibiotics so they could immediately rule out an infection."