Layla Moran: PET cancer scan farce is botched privatisation

Many have told me about their concern that there is not enough funding, and about the impact of creeping privatisation.

One example of this is that our world-leading PET-CT cancer scanning service in Oxfordshire remains at threat.

A decision was made to hand the contract to private firm InHealth, in partnership with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH), who currently run the service and are opposed to such a solution.

Together with fellow local MPs Anneliese Dodds and Victoria Prentis, I wrote to Matt Hancock, still the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, asking him to think again in light of new evidence we uncovered.

NHS England’s decision must be reviewed by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, as Oxfordshire’s Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) requested.

I have a number of serious concerns about the decision.

New evidence suggests that InHealth’s proposed mobile scanners directly contradict previous NHS guidelines.

It is also now clear that the proposed service would result in a second-rate, fragmented experience for both patients and clinicians.

These developments are worrying.

There is a clear consensus amongst experts that fixed scanners are preferable to mobile sites.

So why is the exact opposite being done here in the Thames Valley?

It is vitally important that the needs of Oxfordshire patients are taken into account.

Oxfordshire patients will not have confidence if they ring up to find that they are speaking to someone in a call centre in Rochdale, or if there is not clear information about how accessible the service is for those with mobility problems.

Currently, when patients go to the Churchill Hospital for a PET-CT scan, they can go through the related diagnostic procedures to ensure a good level of treatment is in place. That won’t be possible at these mobile sites.

This is urgent. It cuts across party lines. The care of NHS patients is now at stake.

If our world-class local service is to be saved from this botched privatisation, Matt Hancock needs to act now.

Otherwise, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will be forced into a partnership that they neither want nor need and, once again, patients will lose out to Conservative ideology.