A FORMER senior member of staff at a discontinued cluster of health centres has raised concerns over the lack of support received from the Department of Health in facilitating their reopening.
Prof Karol Sikora, once medical director of the Rutherford Cancer Centres, has spearheaded a petition to reinstate facilities in Newport, Shinfield and Northumberland, which has been signed by 13,691 people. The government is obliged to respond to petitions which receive more than 10,000 signatures.
Rutherford Health group announced the closure of the centre in June 2022 after going into liquidation, citing the Covid-19 pandemic as the driver behind a “critical lack of patient volume” and “cost of infrastructure”.
Prof Sikora explained: “I am getting increasingly disturbed by the lack of coherence coming from the NHS and Department of Health on the empty Rutherford centres. It’s murky at best. Every day, a new excuse emerges and they are all entirely baseless.”
He added that extensive patient backlogs have made the Rutherford centres a necessity, while the NHS’ “rationing” of proton beam therapy (PBT), an advanced form of radiotherapy, means that only 1% of radiotherapy patients in the UK will have access to PBT, according to Prof Sikora, who also claimed that other European countries are targeting a fraction closer to 10%.
Reading Today contacted the NHS England for a response, but was informed that the organisation would not be commenting as it deemed the issue as a private company’s commercial situation.
Shortly after the closing of the Rutherford Centres, a spokesperson for the NHS said to the BBC that it would do everything possible to ensure that cancer care continues as normal.
Costs to pay staff were a factor in the centres’ closure and Prof Sikora admitted that staffing would be a challenge, but said: “With that attitude, why open any new facilities ever? If the authorities put in a 10th of the effort they gave to the vaccine rollout, it could be solved.
“I’m sorry, but considering the vast sums the NHS wastes on management, diversity, PR and a host of other non-clinical vanity projects, it can find funds.
“The centres will continue to gather dust and rot away well into 2024 if the current situation continues,” Prof Sikora said. “I’m concerned that incompetence at the highest levels of the NHS is resulting in thousands and thousands of cancer patients missing out on state-of-the-art assistance.
“Politicians need to start asking some serious questions.”
The details of the submitted petition state that reopening the three cancer centres could help 20,000 patients per year.
