Post-treatment cut has left my wife feeling vulnerable

Published: 8 April, 2011

• IT must be an impossible task for hospital bosses to decide where to make cuts in the services they can afford to offer their patients. 

The support offered to post-treatment breast cancer patients at Whittington Hospital is one such service. My wife is coming through chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer. She was told in writing that she would be seeing the medical and surgical team every three months for the first year to follow her progress. That was a great comfort to us both.  

We found out purely by chance in February, while sitting in the very crowded Monday oncology clinic, that the medical element of this has been withdrawn.  Discussion and a complaint to the hospital management confirmed this; an apology for poor communication was offered.  

At the time, a reduction in the number of doctors available in clinic plus the increasing numbers of patients being treated for breast cancer was the reason cited. 

The director of nursing has assured us they are investigating providing nurse-led clinics to replace the follow-up sessions with a doctor. This has left my wife feeling somewhat abandoned and vulnerable.

After the excellent treatment she had for her cancer at the Whittington and the Royal Free, during which time we encountered many supportive and professional staff, we feel for those staff who now have to withdraw their support during the post-treatment phase, which the director of nursing recognises as a period of “distress and anxiety faced by patients... at a time when there is a step-down in intensity of care”.   

We sincerely hope the cuts the government plans for NHS services take into account the increasing number of cases of breast cancer presenting for treatment nationally, and are aware of the need for supportive after-care. 

DAVID COLLINS
Tollington Park, N4

• LAST week, Emily Thornberry warned us that our A&E and maternity service at Whittington Hospital may not be safe (You thought our A&E was safe? Just wait until the NHS shake-up arrives, April 1). Ms Thornberry warns that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s NHS “reforms” could put these services at risk. 

She appears to be suffering a severe bout of amnesia over the NHS. It was the Labour government which wanted to close our A&E and maternity services, just as it closed many others up and down the country.

Ms Thornberry goes on to lambast Tory plans for privatisation in the NHS. She says: “The government should build on Labour’s achievements.” What were those achievements?

What about the private independent treatment centres which cost more than NHS treatment. Perhaps we should think of the foundation hospitals which were free of local NHS control and perfectly placed for privatisation. Or maybe we should remember Lord Darzi’s polyclinics, which would have done away with many GP practices in favour of private consortia.

The nadir of Labour’s achievement must have been the pathetic attempt by Andy Burnham to declare that the NHS should be the “preferred provider” for, yes you’ve got it, the NHS. Mr Burnham was forced into a humiliating retreat when this idea was challenged at Labour’s own Co-operation and Competition Panel in a class action involving several health companies and charities. It breached Labour’s own rules for “open” commissioning in the NHS.

Ms Thornberry goes on to warn us that Mr Lansley’s reforms will make the NHS “increasingly vulnerable to EU competition law”.  Of course she’s on firm ground here because the EU competition law she refers to was included in the Lisbon Treaty. Labour rushed to sign us up to it without all the unnecessary trouble of a wide debate, yet alone the promised referendum. Another proud achievement for Labour.

Labour’s achievement on the NHS was to widen the doors of privatisation so far the Tories can simply walk right in and finish the job. Did it really never occur to Labour that by implementing a bit of outsourcing here, a bit of private commissioning there, and all wrapped up with the Lisbon Treaty, that the Tories wouldn’t pick up the ball and run with it?  

Mr Lansley is building on Labour’s “achievements”.

RICHARD ROSSER
Highbury New Park, N5