Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas reveals GPs sent wife home three times before she died from cancer

Sky presenter Simon Thomas has revealed that his wife was sent home from the GP three times before being diagnosed with cancer and dying days later.

Mr Thomas described how his wife Gemma was told by doctors to go home and rest after showing flu like symptoms - but died only four days after her last visit.

The mother-of-one had been to the GP three times in six days before being later admitted to hospital with a highly aggressive form of acute myeloid leukaemia.

Mr Thomas is now backing a campaign to educate GPs about the disease, urging them to take blood tests for suspected sufferers of the disease which affects 2,600 people in Britain a year.

In a Tweet, Mr Thomas wrote: “Three times my wife Gemma went to the doctor in six days and three times she was sent home and told to rest. Four days after her final visit to her GP she was dead. We have to help and train our GP's and to detect blood cancer earlier.”

The Sky Sports presenter has vowed to increase public knowledge about the disease which claimed his wife's life. In Westminster MPs today discussed the issue of blood cancer and the danger it posed.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Blood Cancer said that many signs of blood cancer can be “misunderstood or misdiagnosed”.