Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab):...I thank my
colleagues—my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry North East
(Colleen Fletcher), for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and for
Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), and the hon. Members for
Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for North
Warwickshire (Craig Tracey)—for their support. Together, we sent a
letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to
request a meeting to discuss these issues, and I am...Request free trial
Mr (Coventry South)
(Lab):...I thank my colleagues—my hon. Friends the Members
for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), for Coventry North West
(Mr Robinson) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), and
the hon. Members for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for Rugby (Mark Pawsey)
and for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey)—for their support.
Together, we sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Health and
Social Care to request a meeting to discuss these issues, and I am
keenly awaiting a response. Many of those colleagues also attended
an informative meeting with two surgeons from the
hepato-pancreato-biliary unit at University Hospital Coventry, Mr
Khan and Mr Lam. The point of the letter was that we wished to
discuss the transfer of the HPB unit, which provides pancreatic
services at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, to
hospitals in Birmingham and Worcester.
UHCW has been developing Pancreatic cancer services
since 1990. It has an excellent team of doctors, specialists,
nurses, surgeons and other healthcare professionals, and has
completed more than 1,000 major operations and thousands of other
therapies. It deploys cutting-edge robotic, endoscopic and
radiologic technology to treat patients in Coventry. It takes a
patient-centred approach to its service, resulting in excellent
feedback from those who have undergone treatment in its care. The
success of the department cannot be denied. The outcomes of
therapies are on a par with international standards in all spheres.
Proposals to shut down this extremely successful department will be
a great loss to the NHS...
...The proposals demonstrate more short-sighted,
efficiency-obsessed thinking from NHS England based on the National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. The findings
of the 2015 review, which stated that UHCW’s HBP unit does not
serve enough people, totally ignored the good standard of
pancreatic care at UHCW. It is of the highest quality and helps to
provide patients with the best possible outcomes. NHS England’s
proposals threaten the standard of care, which I will raise
shortly. The proposals will have a detrimental impact on those in
need of this care in Coventry and elsewhere in Warwickshire...
...University Hospital Birmingham specialises in
liver transplants, and it has a success rate that the whole of the
west midlands is immensely proud of. Understandably, those
operations take priority because of the speed with which they need
to take place. Patients at the hospital who have other, slightly
less urgent, conditions find that their operations are routinely
cancelled in place of a liver transplant. Moving pancreatic
services to Birmingham will dramatically increase the number of
patients at risk of having their vital operation cancelled. Any
patient who suffers from Pancreatic cancer, or people who have a
family member who has died from this terrible disease, will know
that the speed of detection and the speed of treatment are
absolutely vital to survival. It is extremely hard to detect, and,
as a result, doctors need to act quickly after a patient has been
diagnosed. Any delay to operations decrease the chances of survival
even further....
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond):...The hon.
Gentleman raised a number of important concerns regarding the
discussions to transfer HPB services from University Hospitals
Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust to University Hospitals
Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. HPB services treat patients who
have disorders of liver, bile ducts and pancreas, including
pancreatic and liver cancer. A large volume of HPB services are
delivered in local hospitals, but because of their complex nature
and the high cost of care, delivery in conjunction with specialist
tertiary centres is often necessary...
...The “Improving Outcomes”
guideline document specifies that a population base of at least 2
million is required to make a compliant service. Currently,
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust treats a
population of about 1 million. The guidance also specifies that for
a population of around 2 million, around 215 pancreatic and liver
resections a year would be expected as a proportion of the
population size...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
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