A woman died because her meningitis was mistakenly diagnosed as swine flu, an inquest has heard.

Jasvir Kaur Gill, 48, had begun to feel unwell in early August and called the NHS helpline, which diagnosed her with swine flu.

She was told to get some Tamiflu from the hospital, but this did not appear to have an effect and she started to feel worse.

Her son Sukhvinder Gill called a paramedic out, who checked the patient over and advised her to take paracetamol and water before leaving five minutes later.

However, Ms Gill had a heart attack five hours after the visit and although her family tried to perform CPR, she died shortly afterwards.

An inquest discovered that Ms Gill had died from meningococcal septiceamia.

"Everyone seems to be [talking about] swine flu, swine flu, swine flu. What she had were also symptoms of meningitis, but they didn’t think of that," commented Mr Gill.

In order for a clinical negligence claim to succeed, it must be proven that the actions of health professionals caused further injury, pain or suffering to the victim.