"My friend's Pneumonia and Pleurisy missed at the walk in centre"

My friend has recently been discharged from hospital after needing treatment for bad pneumonia and pleurisy. She is also asthmatic.

Just before Xmas she got a chesty cough and between then and March she was back and forth to her GP and Walk-in centre. She was repeatedly sent home after being told nothing was wrong.

A week before she was rushed to A&E with breathing difficulties she went to the walk in centre in Widnes.

My friends temperature on arrival was above 40 degrees C and she was extremely breathless. The nurse gave her paracetemol and left her in a room with a fan on to let her temp come down. When my friend explained she was breathless, she was told she was having a panic attack. Eventually her diagnosis was "viral tonsillitis" and she was sent on her way being told she'd recover. A week later, the doctor in A&E said that she should have been in A&E sooner with such a high temperature and history of chesty coughs etc.

Not only does this concern me, I have recently also heard of another situation regarding a separate person who I feel could have been saved had he received necessary treatment for a medical condition.

I understand that paracetemol is commonly used to relieve pain and bring down fever; that's fine, if the fever is not too severe and there are no other obvious symptoms. I also understand that time in a cool room may also help bring the temperature down; but I know that a fever indicates infection of some sort. Considering she'd been to and from GP and walk- in with chest infections previously I'm shocked this was not followed up.

From this particular case I understand that simply listening to the chest would probably have not picked anything up; this was because the infection was so severe (and had been missed for so long) a solid mass of infection had gathered at the bottom of the lung. However this could have been (and was at A&E) picked up on chest x rays. Infections were left for so long that the right lung partially collapsed. Her lungs were riddled with infection and it took a week of inpatient treatment and painkillers to even start to fight off the infection.

So, I hope you can see my concerns and I hope that this is taken very seriously. I don't know how my friend would feel about sharing this story with management as part of an official complaint but I'd like to see something happen whether she does speak to somebody or not. The fact that this has happened (twice in the past month that I have heard about) is causing a great deal of concern for me and I am not convinced that the department at the moment is working in a way that protects the health of all its service users.

I feel that something needs to be done and quickly.