A grandmother who was expecting to be in hospital for just a few hours for a routine examination ended up requiring a two-week stay after a drugs blunder left her feeling seriously ill.

It is the second time in two years that 77-year-old Joan Lee claims she has been let down by the standards of care at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

In September 2004 the grandmother-of-two was mistakenly told she had cancer when in fact the consultant had been looking at the wrong X-rays.

After a week of worry she was given the all-clear but the damage had already been done and Mrs Lee suffered a nervous breakdown.

At the time Mrs Lee said she did not complain because of her poor mental state but now after the latest incident she and her husband Norman, of Truncliffe, Odsal Top, Bradford, are taking their complaint to the highest level.

The latest incident happened when Mrs Lee went to Bradford Royal Infirmary on January 31 for an endoscopy - a procedure she thought would take just a few hours.

Because Mrs Lee has been on a drug called warfarin for six years to thin her blood, extra care had to be taken before the procedure was carried out and she had to stop taking the warfarin for a few days.

Following the procedure careful checks were kept on her blood and she was again given daily doses of warfarin.

She said the mix up happened when a nurse gave her a pill which looked black and white instead of her usual pink tablets.

When Mrs Lee questioned what the pill was they were told it was definitely warfarin.

However, the nurse later returned with two pink pills which were left over after the drugs round and said they must be Mrs Lee's warfarin.

Just a few hours later Mrs Lee awoke in pain and feeling sick.

She staggered to the toilet and was violently ill and felt extremely hot and dizzy.

"The next morning I couldn't eat breakfast and I couldn't lift my head up," she said.

When a pharmacist was drafted in to help it was discovered the tablet had been ramipril, a drug used to treat people with extremely high blood pressure.

It caused her normal blood pressure to plummet which in turn caused the dizziness and sickness.

She was kept in the hospital for a further four days and was eventually discharged on February 14.

"I went into hospital well for an endoscopy and ended up there for two weeks," said Mrs Lee. "I have never felt so ill."

A spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which manages BRI, said it was unable to comment on individual cases in public because of its duty to maintain patient confidentiality.

"If any patient has concerns or is dissatisfied with their treatment in any way, we would always encourage them to raise it with us through our complaints system so the circumstances of the case can be fully and fairly investigated and the findings shared and discussed directly with them," he said.