Tayside breast cancer patients forced to travel to other cities for treatment
Patients could face an eighty mile journey for radiotherapy due to staff shortages.
Last updated 20th Jan 2022
Breast cancer patients in Tayside will be forced to travel to Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen for radiotherapy as NHS Tayside has failed to recruit a new oncologist.
The current radiotherapist specialist at Ninewells Hospital is set to retire and a replacement couldn't be sourced - even with the help of the Scottish Government.
It means seven or eight patients a week will make the journey of up to eighty miles to other cancer centres in Scotland.
NHS Tayside insists travel and accommodation for patients forced to travel will be paid for.
Professor Peter Stonebridge, NHS Tayside Medical Director, said:
“Our cancer team in Tayside operates with one clinical oncologist who delivers the specialist radiotherapy service for breast patients.
“We have been making all efforts to recruit to this post that will become vacant soon. There is a national shortage of these specialist clinicians and we, and others, are finding it hard to recruit, despite the best efforts of teams across the organisation.
“That leaves us with a gap in the radiotherapy part of our service – and this is the treatment that will now be delivered at one of the other specialist cancer centres.
“Our preference is that every aspect of the breast cancer pathway would be delivered in Tayside. However, we must be able to deliver a safe service for our patients and the key aspect of being able to achieve this is the availability of the necessary specialist clinical workforce required on a longer-term, sustainable footing.
“As part of a mutual aid response, the teams at the four cancer centres have worked together to develop plans to deliver the radiotherapy part of the Tayside pathway, an arrangement which is already in place at the other cancer centres for a number of other Health Boards.
“We have already contacted patients who are due to start their radiotherapy over the next few weeks to discuss their arrangements and Tayside’s clinical teams will keep patients updated directly.
“We will continue to work with Scottish Government to look at all the available options open to us to restore the radiotherapy part of the patient pathway in Tayside. We remain committed to delivering services locally, as long as it is safe for patients and, in this case, that requires the provision of the suitable specialist medical workforce.”
Maurice Golden, Scottish Conservative MSP for the North East, said:
"This is a major decision with far-reaching consequences for many people in Tayside. I'm sure it will only have been made as a last resort.
"We need to get specialists back in cancer wards, so people can get life-saving treatment without travelling hundreds of miles.
"So I'm asking the SNP government to commit to resourcing cancer services appropriately — look internationally for an oncologist if they have to.
"Humza Yousaf has the benefit of record block funding from the UK Government to spend on rebuilding our NHS.
"This time, right now, is exactly when we need to see cancer services ramp up to meet a backlog of cases, which has only multiplied during the pandemic."