Provision of Services
a) Cancer Services – Kent & Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury
b) Chronic Pain Clinic – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital, Margate (to follow)
Mr D Shortt, Concern for Health in East Kent (CHEK), Ms R Gibb, Chief Executive, Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Mr M Kershaw, Chief Operating Officer and Ms E Shutler, Director of Strategic Development, East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust will be in attendance for this item.
Minutes:
(Mr D Shortt, Concern for Health in East Kent (CHEK), Ms R Gibb, Chief Executive Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Mr M Kershaw, Chief Operating Officer and Ms E Shutler, Director of Strategic Development, East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust were in attendance for this item)
Cancer Services – Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury
(1) Concerns had been raised locally by Concern for Health in East Kent that the linear accelerators at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury were working at best only 50% of the time and that resources and staff were being moved to the Maidstone Oncology Centre.
(2) As a consequence, patient waiting time for radiotherapy which had been down to six weeks had now increased to 12 weeks.
(3) Concerns were also expressed about how the provision of cancer services across Kent was managed. The specific question raised was: is the service managed through the Kent and Medway Cancer Network or through the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust? Ms Gibb responded that management of cancer services across Kent was not via the Kent and Medway Cancer Network but was provided by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust through the Kent Oncology Centre.
(4) Ms Gibb added that the provision of cancer services nationally was very costly. What Kent had was a different model of cancer services with a Kent Oncology Centre in Maidstone and a satellite centre in Canterbury as a consequence there was an oncologist working across the whole of East Kent. Ms Gibb made it clear that the Kent Oncology Centre could only deliver work commissioned by the Primary Care Trusts.
(5) Ms Gibb informed the Committee that as many cancer services as possible would continue to be delivered at Kent and Canterbury Hospital. It was only the highly complex cases of radiotherapy that would need to be treated in Maidstone, generally services for cancers such as breast and lung cancer would continue to be dealt with in Canterbury.
(6) Mr Brazier, the Canterbury Member of Parliament, expressed the view that there was only so much money available in the PCT budgets for all health services, including cancer. He said that the provision of cancer services at Maidstone was an expensive operation and he did question why, in some instances, very sick people were unable to access their nearest linear accelerator – instead having to travel from Canterbury to Maidstone or vice versa. Ms Gibb responded that there was no point a patient accessing their nearest linear accelerator if what the patient was going to receive was sub optimal treatment because the staff available at the nearest linear accelerator were the wrong staff.
(7) Ms Gibb acknowledged that cancer services were very expensive. It was important that the more complicated services were dealt with in the most appropriate place. What was happening across the County was that patients were receiving a London service but locally.
(8) In answer to questions relating to the skills required by an oncologist and ... view the full minutes text for item 17