A NORTH Yorkshire father has urged doctors in the region to help save lives by stepping up their knowledge of meningitis symptoms.

Bill Thompson, 52, of Parkhouse Green, Harrogate, said every story of meningitis misdiagnosis that emerged brought back the awful memories of the death of his 16-year-old son, Scott, six years ago.

His fears are backed by the Meningitis Trust, which has just launched a new campaign called Don't Wait For The Rash after a nine-month old baby was sent home from a Kent Hospital, but died hours later from meningitis.

Mr Thompson, a funeral director in Harrogate, said his son was only diagnosed with meningitis when a rash appeared, despite suffering seven other symptoms of the condition. He said: "I expect that each individual doctor would never make the same mistake, but that needs to be across the board.

"There are clearly symptoms which should not be missed and parents can see it, they are painfully aware of what's wrong with their child, but all too often doctors do not listen."

Nicola Davies, spokeswoman for the Meningitis Trust, said the charity had done huge amounts of work in the past few years educating doctors about the disease.

But she feared the trust had become a victim of its own success.

She said: "Everyone now seems to know about the rash, which does not disappear under pressure, but unfortunately people wait for the rash when not every sufferer has one. We have done more education for GPs recently than we have ever done.

"We are doing a lot of work and it's certainly getting better, but the issue is not just knowing the symptoms, but how confident doctors are in separating what could be meningitis from what is flu.

"We say that you have to act fast, but meningitis can look like flu for quite a while. But once it hits, you can be down within a couple of hours."

The key early symptoms of meningitis are headache, stiff neck and dislike of bright lights. These may not all appear at once and may be accompanied by other symptoms including a high temperature, vomiting, sometimes diarrhoea and fitting. The trust's helpline is 0845 6000 800.

Updated: 11:10 Thursday, January 16, 2003