Cancer unit campaign goes to the top

Britain's National Cancer Director and professor of Palliative medicine, Professor Mike Richards, has been asked to intervene in the controversial plans to move Upper GI Tract cancer surgery from Worthing Hospital to the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton.

The move coincides with publication of a table by retired surgeon George Dickson, which shows that Worthing emerges streets ahead of Brighton on key factors in the treatment.

He has told Prof Richards that Worthing's own publication of a complete audit of 20 years oesophagectomies showed that its operative mortality and five year survival rates were similar to some of the best centres in the world.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Centralisation of the specialist surgery at Brighton is being sought by the Sussex Cancer Network because it believes dealing with a high volume of cases at a main centre will create a centre of excellence.

But Mr Dickson told Prof Richards: "In Scotland, a countrywide audit (Scottish Audit of Gastric and Oesophageal Cancer Steering Group 1997- 2000) found no outcome difference between the hospitals and therefore adopted the Calman principle of networking with complete and open audit but without centralisation. This system seems to be working well."

Recently, major centres have questioning the volume/outcome relationship. Harvard Medical School's verdict was that high volume hospitals could deliver poor care and low volume hospitals could deliver good care and 'volume should not be substituted for prospectively monitored and properly risk-adjusted outcomes as a measure of the quality of surgical care'.

Full story in West Sussex Gazette, November 24