Specialist cancer services should not be moved
CONTROVERSIAL plans by the Primary Care Trust to move specialist cancer services out of the county to Devon have been rejected by Cornwall County Council.
Instead, its health and adult social care overview and scrutiny committee ordered a full public consultation into the transfer of Upper-Gastro Intestinal (upper GI) surgery from the Royal Cornwall Hospital (RCH) Truro, to Derriford Hospital, Plymouth.
The committee said the people of Cornwall should also be consulted on the “planned centralisation” of the treatment of gynaecological and head and neck cancers.
Its decision – carried by 16 votes to two – received a mixed welcome from the Keep Cancer Care in Cornwall Campaign Group, whose members packed the public gallery.
Speaking after the vote yesterday afternoon, group spokesman, Sheena Cox said “It will be difficult for the public to have confidence in a consultation led by the PCT.”
“But at least now we will be able to move forward and have a full debate that the public have so far been denied.”
Minutes before the meeting began, campaigner, Rose Woodward, presented Eric Parkin, committee chairman, with a petition containing 18,985 names calling for upper GI cancer treatments to be retained at RCH.
“Just wanted you to see the volume of feelings of people,” said Mrs Woodward, of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Cancer Patient and Forum Group.
The development came five days after Peter Davies dramatically quit as chairman of the trust that runs RCH.
In his resignation letter, he told Sir Michael Pitt, chairman of the South West Strategic Health Authority: “There appears to be no willingness to consider the future strategic position of RCHT within the NHS South West area.”
“I am drawn to the inevitable conclusion that specialist services will continue to be centralised out of Cornwall in the belief that this will deliver improved outcomes for patients.”
On the eve of yesterday's crunch meeting at County Hall, senior medical and dental staff at RCH waded into the debate, expressing “dismay” over the resignation of Mr Davies and “total support in defending the services we offer”. They warned: “Removal of upper GI cancers from Cornwall would start a de-stabilising process in the local health community.”
Cllr Parkin was expected to warn fellow committee members that information provided by the PCT over the transfer of upper GI treatments had been focused on the clinical case rather than the effect on patients and local services.
He added: “Significant amounts of conflicting information have been made available on this issue via a number of stakeholders since November 2007, leading me to the conclusion that this is a far more complex and wide-reaching issue than we were led to believe. The significant weight of public concern has been demonstrated today through the petition, and we have a duty to carefully consider their views.”
3 Comments
by Simon Ellis, Looe
Wednesday, July 16 2008, 8:47AM
“The Government is also bound by the NHS Charter, Ms. Seale. Which means that when the provision of care is is shown to result in higher recovery rates when certain processes and structures are in place, that a Trust or SHA is obligated to follow those structures and processes. It is shown at a national level that recovery rates for G.I. tract cancer are substantially higher when patients are treated in specialist centres. The incidence of such cancers is not high enough in Cornwall to make such a centre viable. The SHA and PCT are therefore legally and morally obliged to buy that service outside Cornwall. " Choice " can never be absolute,”
by Dianne Seale, Truro
Tuesday, July 15 2008, 10:23PM
“Remind me - isn't it this government that tries to tell us it's committed to giving the patient 'choice' and a 'voice' when it comes to deciding where they want to be treated? So that'll be a choice between a 45 minute trip to Derriford or an even longer one to Bristol or London will it? And now we've got a public consultation, you'll have to listen to our voice! What about bringing survival rates at Treliske up? Can't Treliske share consultants with Derriford? It has done in the past with plastic surgery for breast reconstruction.
But then I think Cornwall has been badly served by the NHS for many years. The people of Cornwall built and largely maintain the Mermaid Centre and Sunrise Centres despite the NHS. The people of Cornwall and Devon raised the money for the Chestnut Appeal to treat prostate cancer down here in the west. Hospices, built and maintained by charitable donations, are the experts in pain management for all cancer sufferers.Shall we build our own centre?”
by Simon Ellis, Looe
Tuesday, July 15 2008, 4:23PM
“At best this will delay the reprovision of services to Derriford for a year or two. Cornwall will not be able to buck the trend in this area. The Dof H will simply wait a while and then move the service anyway, at less favourable terms.”