‘If we don’t get it this time we won’t in our lifetime’

3:51pm Thursday 3rd January 2008

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A FAST and furious campaign is expected to try and win radiotherapy services for cancer patients at Hereford County Hospital.

The Three Counties Cancer network has confirmed that it will consider setting up a satellite life-saving facility for county patients and will make a decision in the spring.

But it wants health authorities in the three counties to carry out public consultations about the future of radiotherapy before making a choice.

At stake are three options: concentrating the whole service at Cheltenham, setting up a service in Hereford or choosing Worcester hospital instead.

Allan and Angela Lloyd, who have been campaigning with the Hereford Times for two years to bring radiotherapy services to Hereford to cut back on the long hours some cancer patients are travelling for treatment, greeted the news with renewed hope.

The Kington couple want people to make a special effort to fight for Hereford to be chosen.

"This will be our last chance. It is now or never. But I feel this is a new year goodwill message for Herefordshire," said Mr Lloyd.

"I feel a little bit easier, after two years of waiting for some definite step forward. Perhaps 2008 is the year for Herefordshire."

Herefordshire Primary Care Trust and Hereford Hospitals Trust called in independent cancer experts to consider the feasibility and implications of providing radiotherapy at the County Hospital.

Their conclusions led to the two trusts making a bid for the service at a meeting of the Three Counties Cancer Network a few days before Christmas.

Details of their case have not been made public but Paul Ryan, head of commissioning at the PCT, confirmed the experts had indicated that a single radiotherapy machine at the County Hospital was feasible if there was a guarantee of cross-cover from the Cheltenham centre.

A second or third could be added at a later date, depending on the predicted increase of cancer patients needing radiotherapy in the future.

Nor have the costs been revealed, They were complex and matters would become more clear in a consultation document the PCT was expected to publish in the next couple of weeks, said Mr Ryan.

But it is understood the experts believe the service could be provided within an NHS budget.

The costs to be considered are the capital ones - the construction of bunkers and provision of the radiotherapy machine - and the revenue costs of running the service.

With money now following patients Mr Lloyd believes it would be better spending it at the County Hospital for a service nearer home than paying Cheltenham for the service.

The new unit would also attract more patients to Hereford from across neighbouring borders.

He also believed Herefordshire's case was strengthened by a recent government report which said cancer patients should not have to travel longer than 45 minutes for radiotherapy treatment.

He has received more than 400 letters from patients or their families indicating some were spending two to three hours on the road to and from Cheltenham and some claiming they refused the treatment because they could not face it.

Mr Lloyd said the next step of the campaign would be a "last ditch effort". "If we don't get it this time we never will in our lifetime," he warned.

In a statement following its meeting, the cancer network said that apart from the distance problem it had to consider the safety and additional cost of a linked service to a satellite unit.

Once a decision had been made it was hoped the next radiotherapy machine, wherever it was located, would become operational in 2010.

Space is being allocated in the planned new Macmillan Renton Cancer unit at the County Hospital but the cost of the bunkers and machine are not part of the current Macmillan Renton Appeal.