A BRAND new £2.5m cancer scanner has stood idle at Southend Hospital for a year because of a dispute over where it should be based.

Radiologists at the hospital are calling for NHS England to make an urgent decision on the PET-CT equipment, which uses a dye to locate cancers in the body.

The problem about where it should be located arose after councillors in Thurrock voiced concerns about the distance patients would have to travel for treatment.

Paul Cervi, a clinical director for diagnostic and therapeutics including cancer and radiology, said: “Patients are being deprived of a scanner that has been ready to go for months for reasons unexplained “I am saddened this has become a political football. The livelihoods and survival of the two trusts do not depend on the location of a PET scanner.

“In my view, there are much bigger issues facing the health economy, with a projected £150m deficit in Essex this year and the trusts should be looking to co-operate to maximise efficiencies in bigger areas rather than creating a diversion of concern regarding the location of a single PET scanner.

“We have to look after the whole population of south Essex so we put it where it is scientifically the right place to have it.“ Mr Cervi said the scanner should be based in Southend because the hospital was already the main radiotherapy centre in south Essex.

He said it would not make much difference if patients from the eastern side of the county had to travel an extra 15 minutes to Southend because they would have to make the journey anyway, if the scanner was based in Basildon, to receive the radiotherapy treatment in Southend.

He added transferring the scanner to Basildon would involve providing a new building, special radiation disposal permissions and a further unnecessary delay of approximately 12 months.

He also said there was a national and international consensus among experts that PET-CT scanners should be co-located with radiotherapy services.

Currently, a temporary mobile PET-CT scanner visits Basildon Hospital two to three times a week, but the Southend scanner, which was installed in November last year, would be a permanent replacement, providing a service for 13,333 patients a year.

Rachel Unsworth, spokeswoman for Basildon Hospital, said: “The decision about the scanner is a matter for our commissioners, NHS England.”

CONSULTATION DELAYS

THE scanner has been sitting idle because NHS England has been carrying out consultations into the best place to install it.

The PET-CT scanner at Southend was initially provided by a private company commissioned by the hospital.

However, subsequently NHS England undertook a procurement process for a different private firm to supply scanners to hospitals across the country.

NHS England’s new provider bought the PET-CT scanner which had been supplied to Southend Hospital, but it has never been used.

A spokesman for NHS England said: “The PET-CT service for south Essex is commissioned at Basildon Hospital where it has been provided for several years.

“The scanner at Southend was purchased by the previous independent provider of the service but was never commissioned by the NHS and is not being paid for by the NHS.

“Before agreeing to any change of location for the PET-CT service, we felt it was appropriate to fully investigate the clinical advantages of providing the service from Southend or from Basildon and to engage local people before reaching a decision.

“It would be disrespectful to the people of Essex and irresponsible to rush into a decision without being sure it was the right one for the long term.”

Dye used to trace disease

THE donut-shaped Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography machine works by injecting patients with a radioactive dye and they are then told to relax for two or three hours to allow the substance to circulate around their body.

The patient passes through the scanner which gives X-ray style images to a team of radiologists watching on a computer in a neighbouring room.

The scanner will be useful for patients suffering from specific cancers, particularly lung and colorectal cancer.

A decision on where to locate the scanner will be made following a consultation, but it is not yet known when this will be.

MP: Scanner must be used

DAVID Amess, Tory MP for Southend West, branded the situation “ridiculous”.

He said: “How it has come to this, I don’t know. It is a ridiculous state of affairs. All I can tell you is that we have first class cancer services at Southend Hospital and highly skilled staff there.

“It is a very expensive piece of machinery which has stood there for a year and it should be used now and the right place for it to be is Southend.”