Help us to bring radiotherapy centre to Kendal (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Help us to bring radiotherapy centre to Kendal

9:00am Thursday 20th October 2011 in Health By Helen Perkins, Reporter

PATIENTS CAN’T COPE: Dr Hugh Reeve outside Westmorland General Hospital

THE Westmorland Gazette is today launching a campaign to bring a radiotherapy centre to Kendal.

It is urging readers to lobby health chiefs by signing a petition calling for cancer treatments closer to home.

The Shorter Journeys - Longer Lives campaign hopes to get a multi-million pound radiotherapy unit sited at Westmorland General Hospital.

Signatures will be used alongside names collected by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron, who is also pleading for the service in Kendal.

Group editor Kevin Young said: “The current provision in South Lakeland for cancer sufferers is simply inadequate.

"Lives are being lost because people in this area have to travel around 50 miles to receive basic radiotherapy treatment.

“That is why we are appealing to readers to get behind our campaign to get this unit set up in Cumbria.”

The appeal launch comes in a week when a leading South Lakeland doctor claimed terminally-ill cancer patients were shortening their lives because they were not prepared to make the gruelling journey for radiotherapy.

NHS Cumbria’s Dr Hugh Reeve said some of the county’s cancer sufferers were rejecting life-enhancing treatment because the nearest centre was up to 90 minutes drive away in Preston.

“Radiotherapy can make people feel very unwell and it certainly leaves them exhausted,” said Dr Reeve.

“The last thing patients want is a long drive to get to treatment.

“Some know they won’t cope with the journey times.

"People are turning down care that could help them live longer and help them deal with the pain better.”

He spoke out as funding bosses opened talks on plans for a specialist cancer base in Kendal.

Six NHS trusts from across Cumbria and Lancashire are expected to decide, by Christmas, if a satellite centre will be built at WGH.

It follows a two-year campaign from patients and health professionals.

A spokesman for Cumbria and Lancashire NHS Collaborative Commissioning Board said key criteria for discussion included the high cost of proposed extensions to WGH and the amount of patients the base could treat.

Work would include building a lead-lined bunker to house two radiotherapy machines.

Last year, 426 people from South Cumbria travelled to Preston for radiotherapy – 184 people from the Barrow area and 242 people from South Lakeland and Ulverston.

An NHS Cumbria spokesman said a new service would not only help South Lakeland cancer patients but would also expand services offered throughout the North West and help meet a predicted increase in demand due to the ageing population and rising cancer rates.

“This is about saving and prolonging lives,” said Mr Farron.

“I’ve had more experience of cancer than I would like to have.

"My mum, Sue, died of cancer at the age of 54 and my mother-in-law, Liz Cantley, died of cancer aged 63.

“My experience taught me about the sense of helplessness cancer creates and the desperate need for services to be close to home.

"An awful situation can be made much worse by unnecessary distance.”

Cumbria’s director of public health, Prof John Ashton said good access to cancer services was a ‘striking issue’ for the region.

He said: “The creation of a cancer centre in Preston was part of the solution,” he said.

“The final piece of the jigsaw is the creation of a centre in south Cumbria.”

Click on the links below for more information on the campaign and to sign the petition.