An unwelcome seed of doubt in the minds of breast cancer patients

NHS clinicians always have the best interests of individual patients at heart. The needs of the person come before general guidance, which works for most people but cannot dictate treatment for all.

The relationship between the patient and the person giving care – whether that’s a surgeon, a consultant or nurse – is based on implicit trust because the vast majority of patients know that to be true. Especially today, working in the NHS requires the overriding will to do right by each patient.

That is what made the bombshell accusations against Tayside oncology so damaging in 2019, to this day.

The HIS report, the 1% to 2% figure in particular, sowed an unwelcome seed of doubt in the minds of anyone who received adjuvant drugs as part of their breast cancer treatment between 2016 and 2019. Perhaps that threatened the public’s trust in a service, staffed by experts whose only desire in life was to save lives. What it certainly did do was hollow out a Tayside department that has never recovered.

A succession of botched, potentially misleading and ultimately conflicting reports have done more to conceal the truth than let it come to light.

My heart goes out to the patients and families who have become mired in an issue which has become far larger than an argument about clinical decision making.

There are scientific arguments made in journals, between cancer centres and individual clinicians all the time – medical science only advances because of that professional discourse. Framing the operation of trained clinicians as a potential cause of reoccurrence, without evidenced expert analysis, just let everyone down.

Some conclusions can be drawn. Patients and families are no further forward with answers.

To no real end, a devastating vacuum exists in Tayside oncology that must be filled. Five of six valued staff members have been driven out of the profession and in some cases the country.

NHS Tayside top brass have stayed at a remove the whole time, and the Scottish Government has done nothing to clear up why it’s using non-expert advice and guesswork to address valid concerns.

Now, (Health Secretary) Humza Yousaf ’s comments will not instil confidence that the SNP Scottish Government has any appetite for bringing Tayside oncology back online, or even meeting the families.

I believe that the only way all these conflicting reports, and the cloak of secrecy thrown over any scrutiny, can be addressed is in one place. Only then will the families and the consultants be given the closure they need.

They were all let down by a labyrinthine and opaque process.

So there must be a public inquiry at Holyrood into this mess.

“They were all let down . . . there must be a public inquiry at Holyrood into this mess