Family claims child cancer Ashya’s parents: He’s still failed by the NHS

BRAIN cancer survivor Ashya King is being refused vital treatment by the NHS – nearly three years after his family defied doctors to save his life, his parents claim.

The seven-year-old lad’s plight hit the headlines when his mum Naghmeh and dad Brett took him from a hospital without consent to get pioneering treatment abroad.

Following a manhunt, the couple ended up spending three nights in a Spanish jail accused of neglect – only to be freed after an outcry.

And Ashya’s proton therapy treatment – at first refused by the NHS which was then ordered to cough up for it – cured his illness after 30 sessions at a clinic in Prague.

But now his parents claim the NHS is slamming the door on rehabilitation treatment and vital regular checks for Ashya which is hindering his recovery and development.

The couple say he still needs medical help to fully recover, including physio and speech therapy.

And they say they are being forced to take Ashya on 2,600 mile round trips to a hospital near the youngster’s grandparents in Spain just to get MRI scans.

Property developer Mr King, 53 – a father of seven – said wherever they take Ashya in Britain “no one will treat him.

“He’s not getting any help from the NHS. No physiotherapy, speech therapy or occupational therapy. He needs some of this stuff.

Scans

“The main thing they won’t give to him involves hospitals, which is MRI scans, hospital appointments, anything like that.

Mr King says he spoke to the family GP about a month ago and told him “we have to keep going to Spain all the time to get MRI scans and oncologist appointments – can’t I do something here?”

He claims the response was “you better carry on as you are”.

Mr King added that the doctor knew they would not get help from the NHS.

And he claims the chief of University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Fiona Dalton, said no treatment would be offered to Ashya.

Ashya can now talk, after previously having to communicate with hand signals, and is attending a mainstream primary school near the family home in Southsea, Hants.

When he fell ill at five with a medulloblastoma brain tumour in July, 2014, doctors at Southampton Hospital said he would be given normal radiotherapy.

They refused the parents’ request to take their son abroad for proton therapy – a type of radiotherapy which precisely targets cancer cells – even though the couple claim one consultant admitted the therapy was the best option and was what he would choose for his son.

Mr King claims UK doctors warned them “not to question” their son’s treatment or he could be taken from them until he was 16.

So the couple secretly wheeled him out of Southampton Hospital and fled abroad on a ferry before being arrested on an international warrant after a manhunt. While they were behind bars in Spain their son was sent to a local hospital for urgent treatment.

After public outrage led to them being freed, the High Court ruled that Aysha should receive the £70,000 proton therapy in Prague paid for by the NHS.

Ashya underwent 30 sessions at the Czech capital’s Proton Therapy Centre and in March 2015 scans revealed that the cancer that had affected his speech and hearing had gone.

The couple feared their son would be taken from them by social workers if they came back to Britain.

Yet they returned home to Southsea, Hants, in the autumn of 2015. Speaking about the moment they realised they would get no more NHS help,