Services to be cut at cancer centre

An award-winning cancer centre is set to be downgraded in a move that will force some patients to travel more than an hour for vital blood transfusions and chemotherapy treatments.

Cancer services at the Kent and Canterbury hospital are among a range of specialities which are set either to close or to be reduced as part of the East Kent Trust's bid to win £102 million of funding under the Government's controversial Private Finance Initiative.

The cancer centre was awarded a coveted NHS charter mark for excellence by former Health Secretary Frank Dobson in 1998. Along with Maidstone hospital, it is responsible for cancer services for the 600,000 people.

A huge campaign, backed by patients and consultants, has been launched against the proposals, which include the closure of the A&E department.

Public consultation closes at the end of next month and a final decision is expected by April.

But all four options include the loss of some cancer services and the closure of the accident and emergency department, the Evening Standard has been told. Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith is expected to raise the matter in the Commons this week.

The East Kent NHS Trust and the local health authority say their proposals are part of the modernisation of services, and have accused consultants and campaigners of scaremongering.

The hospital is already at the centre of a separate controversy after two consultants there went public this weekend to condemn "appalling" conditions and said the casualty department was a "catastrophe waiting to happen."

A&E consultants Richard Collins and Bob Heddle said casualty patients already faced "appalling" conditions, with long trolley waits and nurses "in tears".

They claim the situation will only worsen when the department closes in 2004, as the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate will have to absorb Canterbury's casualty patients.

In-patient radiotherapy and chemotherapy would also cease at the Kent and Canterbury and patients would have to travel to Maidstone hospital. Ken Rogers, chairman of the pressure group Concern for Health in East Kent, said: "It is just absolute madness. Four years ago the then health secretary is singing the cancer centre's praises, now the plan is to close it.

"It means that some patients, who are really quite poorly, will have to travel from Thanet to Maidstone if they need specialist chemotherapy or a blood transfusion, which cancer patients often do.

"It will take some people one hour and 20 minutes to get there by car, and goodness knows how long by public transport."

Mr Collins and Mr Heddle have agreed with Trust bosses not to speak to the media again. But hospital sources say staff are in "total misery" at the proposals. One doctor, who did not want to be named, accused the Trust of trying to "pull the wool over people's eyes" about the proposals.

A spokeswoman for the Trust and the Health Authority said: "There has been some misinformation propagated in the Canterbury area and people have been worried that the changes are in fact threatening their chances of survival from cancer, when really they will result in better services."