NHS bosses have made a significant U-turn over plans to privatise cancer scanning services after outcry from MPs, doctors and patients.
The rethink means the two scanners used for the tests at the cancer centre at the Churchill hospital in Oxford will remain there, after the new private contractor was forced to drop plans to move them elsewhere.
In a further act of backtracking, the NHS staff who operate the PET-CT scans at the hospital will continue to do so. Personnel from InHealth, the firm handed the contract to run the service by NHS England, will have no role at the Churchill.
Positron emission tomography and computed tomography play a vital role in diagnosing cancer and helping to track the growth of tumours and, therefore, help to determine the treatment a patient receives.
The two changes represent a significant retreat by NHS England and InHealth and follow warnings that ending PET-CT scanning at the Churchill would be “a disaster” for patient care.
Under InHealth’s original plan, people with cancer being treated as inpatients at the Churchill would have been taken by ambulance to have a PET-CT scan at GenesisCare private cancer clinic at Littlemore, its intended site for the scanners four miles away on the outskirts of Oxford.
NHS England’s reversal comes after sustained opposition against switching the contract from the NHS to InHealth. Scores of cancer patients had opposed the plan and Oxfordshire MPs from all three main parties had voiced unease, particularly about the scanners leaving the Churchill.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour MP for Oxford East, in which the hospital is situated, said: “I am pleased that NHS England has backtracked and that the scanners will remain in Churchill hospital and be operated by NHS staff.
“What we have seen from the response to this case is that the public is acutely aware that the NHS is best placed to provide the quality care they need. I have received a large amount of correspondence from constituents concerned about this matter.”
NHS England’s rethink emerged in papers submitted by both NHS England and Oxford University Hospital NHS foundation trust, which runs the Churchill, to the meeting of Oxfordshire county council’s health oversight and scrutiny committee scheduled for 4 April.
In its paper, NHS England confirmed that InHealth had dropped its plan to relocate the scanners to Littlemore after OUH’s bosses, governors and doctors warned it would hit the quality and safety of patient care.
The changes, it said, meant there was “no impact” of the privatisation for the people of Oxford.
NHS England sought to reassure critics who questioned the contractor’s lack of experience in providing such a vital service, saying: “The InHealth service will be led by an experienced PET-CT doctor who holds an Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee (ARSAC) license and who will have managerial responsibility for delivery of all aspects of the service.”
OUH welcomed the U-turn on how PET-CT scanning would operate in Oxford, even though InHealth was still getting the contract.
Dame Fiona Caldicott, the trust’s chairwoman, said: “We believe that it is in the best interests of patients living with cancer in Oxford and the surrounding areas for the current PET-CT service at the Chuchill hospital to be retained and for it to continue to be run by OUH clinicians.
“This is an agreement in principle at this stage, but it is a step in the right direction which we welcome.”
InHealth’s contract is to provide PET-CT scanning for the entire Thames Valley for at least seven, and possibly 10, years. It will set up new PET-CT services in Swindon and Milton Keynes as part of the deal to help improve patients’ access to such scans.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “We are pleased that Oxford University Hospitals NHS foundation trust and InHealth have agreed to work together. This means PET-CT services will continue at the Churchill hospital, but also it will enable new local services to open in Milton Keynes and Swindon so that NHS patients there can get a far more convenient local service.”
