The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Call for an independent probe into cancer crisis
Nicola Sturgeon is under pressure to launch an independent inquiry into a breast cancer treatment scandal in Tayside, as newly uncovered documents reveal a litany of warnings were “overlooked” by health chiefs.
Leading members of the Scottish Parliament’s crossparty group on cancer said a government probe is needed to “rebuild public trust and secure the future of lifesaving breast cancer care” in the region.
SNP ministers have previously rejected multiple requests from patients, doctors and local politicians for an independent investigation.
The latest calls come a day after we revealed NHS Tayside non-executive board member Dr Norman Pratt accused senior management last year of being “complicit in the cover-up of a major clinical service scandal”.
The doctor – chairman of the Tayside area clinical forum – claims the board’s “own medical management” privately accepts there is no clinical evidence to back up claims in the reports that patients were put at 1 to 2% increased risk of seeing their cancer return.
We can reveal health chiefs and government officials were given multiple warnings that reviews into the scandal were “deeply flawed” and would lead to the breast oncology service collapsing.
Months later, the department is in turmoil and being supported by other health boards as the final member of a medical team who accused bosses of throwing them “under the bus” prepares to take early retirement next month.
Scottish Labour MSP Jackie Baillie, co-convener of Holyrood’s cross-party cancer group, called for a “full independent investigation into this scandal”.
“This scandal has been seriously damaging to patient trust and the future of breast cancer services in NHS Tayside,” she said.
Scottish Conservative MSP Miles Briggs, the group’s co-convener, said government ministers and health bosses had effectively “closed ranks” around the crisis and left the doctors feeling “completely hung out to dry”.
Asked about the concerns raised by Dr Pratt during First Minister’s Questions yesterday, the first minister said she expects NHS Tayside to “properly investigate”.
Ms Sturgeon said: “The Scottish Government has been advised that the board has thoroughly investigated the matters raised.”
She added the health board has provided a “comprehensive timeline of correspondence and meetings” showing issues relating to the breast cancer team were openly discussed – including ones Dr Pratt “actively contributed to”.
The Scottish Government declined to comment further.
NHS Tayside said its medical director had reviewed Dr Pratt’s submission of clinical and academic evidence for local breast cancer services.
A spokeswoman confirmed the medical director “wrote directly to Dr Pratt with the outcome of this review nearly a year ago concluding that there should be no unique variation in treatment offered in NHS Tayside as compared to other cancer centres”.
Dr Pratt recently wrote to members of the cross-party cancer group still seeking answers for doctors and patients.
In April 2019, an NHS Tayside consultant from outside the breast oncology team wrote to then-chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood outlining his multiple reservations with the findings of governmentcommissioned reports.
He noted there was no practising breast oncologist on the review group and no evidence presented that patients were put at risk.
The consultant wrote again in November, this time to Gregor Mcnie, the Scottish Government’s lead on cancer strategy, describing a Healthcare Improvement Scotland report, commissioned by the government, as “scandalously flawed”.
He warned: “Something needs to be done to reevaluate what is going on here. Everybody seems stuck and embedded in their positions” and “the real risk otherwise is that an entire service for all cancer patients in this region will collapse”.
In May 2019, a retired NHS Tayside oncologist wrote to Ms Calderwood to express his concerns over the claims of a 1 to 2% increased risk of cancer recurrence.
He claimed the report was “obviously put together in haste”.
The retired doctor added: “The breast oncologists need to feel and see that their care is viewed as excellent and that it is valued by the trust otherwise breast cancer care in Tayside is likely to collapse.”
In June 2020, four members of the multidisciplinary cancer team – colleagues of the breast oncologists – wrote to NHS Tayside medical director Peter Stonebridge to warn: “At the present time we are unable to provide a breast service in NHS Tayside”.
A report commissioned by the government did not contain either a medical or clinical oncologist.
In February 2021, Dr Pratt wrote to Gregor Mcnie saying any board member, politician, external body or committee “would come to entirely different conclusions” from the government reports based on a proper review of current breast cancer literature and independent expert opinion.
Further expert opinion, collated by NHS Tayside consultants, includes a top breast cancer doctor at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, who stated the decision to lower doses “was a reasonable one” and one she agrees with.
A Scots oncologist, who has gone through breast cancer treatment, said the doctors should be “commended” for adjusting the dose after auditing the “very high rates” of toxicity experienced by their patients from the higher amount.