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Dear Katie,

After noticing some unusual symptoms, my wife made an appointment with her GP, who referred her for an urgent investigation for suspected colon cancer.

We said we had Axa private medical insurance, and he suggested we use it. We notified Axa straight away and it authorised payment for my wife’s scans, on grounds that they would take more than six weeks to have done on the NHS.

A cancerous tumour was found just before Christmas, and my wife was told she’d need an operation to remove it, followed by chemotherapy.

Privately, the NHS hospital consultant told us that with Christmas just around the corner, he doubted whether the operation would be done within six weeks. But he said he could not say this “officially” to Axa.

Axa refused to pay for the operation, on grounds that the consultant had advised it could be done within six weeks on the NHS. Our policy does not cover us for treatments which can be done within six weeks on the NHS. So we had to decide whether to wait, knowing that in reality the operation could take longer than six weeks to be done, or pay to go private.