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Radiotherapy treatment in Jersey has moved a step closer, with the Government commissioning a full study to assess its viability.
At the moment, cancer patients have to travel to Southampton to receive the specialist treatment.
It has long been the aspiration of Health to provide therapy locally but the relatively small number of islanders who need this treatment is a significant barrier to make it clinically and economically sustainable.
Around 150 people a year travel to the UK for treatment, according to the latest figures, which draw on 2018/19 data.
One long-standing option has been to collaborate with Guernsey; however, the new business case – which commits Health to thoroughly explore on-island radiotherapy in depth – is not exclusively based on pan-island co-operation.
Indeed, Heath Minister Richard Renouf, when announcing his commissioning of the business plan to a Scrutiny Panel on Wednesday – said he had not discussed the matter with his Sarnian counterpart.
Pictured: Health Minister Richard Renouf: “it transpires in the work of this pre-feasibility study that Guernsey is not the only option available.”
Outlining how the business case had come about, Deputy Renouf said: “We have had a group carrying out a pre-feasibility study because I certainly wish, and there is wider desire, to bring this to the Island if it is safe to do so and we can afford to do so.
“The pre-feasibility study highlights the better patient experience and better quality of life that would result from not having to travel, and economic impacts which are favourable through people not being away from their work and families, or family members not having to travel.
“There is also a clinical case to meet to ensure we can deliver the therapy in a way which is safe and means clinicians will retain their registration for a limited population, and the financial impact is pretty large too.
“But the result is that we will be commissioning a full business case to give greater certainty around the potential costs and the operational needs of running the service in Jersey."
Medical Director Patrick Armstrong added: “We absolutely want to repatriate patients to Jersey to get their treatment on-island where we can, but we need to make sure that treatment is safe, it is high quality and the outcome for patients is as good as anywhere else.
“There are significant challenges in terms of maintaining skills on island to run this service; it is a complex treatment."
Pictured: Health’s Clinical Director Patrick Armstrong: “There are lot of questions that need to be answered“.
He continued: “We also need to consider the resilience of the service – it is not like other conditions in that if you’re unable to provide it on a particular day, you can’t go elsewhere for it: the equipment is calibrated in a particular way and you cannot simply transfer from one unit to another. We need to work out what would happen if our equipment failed here.
“There are lot of questions that need to be answered if we are going to go down the route of providing this service on-island.”
Panel member Deputy Kevin Pamplin reminded Deputy Renouf of the words of the Our Hospital Clinical Director Prof Ashok Handa, who said in July: “I understand that the business case for on-island radiotherapy doesn’t stack up for a population of 110,000.
“It does stack up for a population of 180,000 and, of course, if there was a Channel Islands' provision, that would make both economic sense and it might start making good clinical sense.”
However the Minister said that other options were being explored, although he didn’t go into the detail of what they were.
He said: “I have not yet talked to my equivalent in Guernsey but it transpires in the work of this pre-feasibility study that that is not the only option available; there are other ways of delivering a service.”
The Minister added that the business case would be published after Christmas.
The comments follow a petition for an on-island service by Rose Shepherd, a mother with incurable breast cancer, securing around 2,500 signatures. Petitions that receive 1,000 require an official response from a Minister.
Deputy Montfort Tadier has also pledged to bring a proposition on the matter to the States Chamber for debate.
Pictured: The petition by Rose Shepherd, who has incurable breast cancer, has secured the backing of around 2,500 islanders.
"Over the past few months, I have been in contact with a variety of oncology patients and their families, as well as health care professionals in the island," the St. Brelade representative previously told Express.
"It is clear that, whilst patients are grateful for the treatment they have received in the UK, the experience of those travelling whilst very ill, is very traumatic. They are away from their homes and families, sometimes for weeks at a time when they are often very weak and feel very vulnerable.
"I believe there is the opportunity for much of this treatment to be provided on-island and I have also been speaking to the Health Minister and other like-minded colleagues, who also share my vision for on-island treatment. It is something that will be a real lifeline for islanders now and in the future, and it is something that could serve the whole of the channel islands, not just Jersey."
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