An NHS trust has been forced to apologise after sending cancer patients leaflets advertising treatment at its private wing inside their appointment letters.
It comes as information obtained by The Sunday Times shows NHS patients have paid up to £167,000 for cancer treatments not available on the health service at the private wings of NHS hospitals. Some have resorted to crowdfunding to pay for extra cancer drugs.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust enclosed an advert from Nova Healthcare, which runs the private wing of St James’s University Hospital, Leeds, with appointments for NHS chemotherapy.
The Nova Healthcare leaflet has been sent to about 1,000 patients. It says: “As a patient of Nova Healthcare you’ll benefit from access to the latest and most innovative technologies and therapies and enjoy consultant-led care from clinicians who are world-renowned specialists.”
There are also posters advertising Nova Healthcare on the NHS cancer wards at the hospital.
Advertisement
One 33-year-old breast cancer patient, whose cancer has spread and who is receiving palliative chemotherapy, was “disgusted” to receive the advert for the private hospital wing along with her NHS appointment.
Ali Schofield, a journalist from West Yorkshire, whose breast cancer has reached her bones and lungs, said: “The first floor is where the NHS patients go for oncology appointments and chemotherapy. You can’t get into the place now without seeing adverts for Nova Healthcare.
“It is preying on people who don’t have the money and might not want private healthcare anyway. It’s wrong.”
A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We are very sorry for any distress caused by the inclusion of the information about private healthcare in our patient letter. As soon as we were able to look into our patient’s concerns, we apologised in person and publicly. We stopped sending the leaflet immediately and are reviewing its use.
“The trust has a commercial relationship with Nova Healthcare under which the company leases accommodation on our campus at St James’s University Hospital to provide consulting and daycare for private patients.”
Advertisement
Nova Healthcare also apologised to Schofield for the distress caused.
Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that last year, 2016-17, an NHS patient paid £166,714 for extra cancer treatments at the private part of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London. At the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust in the Wirral, one NHS patient paid £49,000 for cancer treatments not available on the NHS.
At the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, a specialist cancer hospital in Manchester, figures were not available. However, a doctor revealed that a patient had paid between £40,000 and £50,000 for a cancer drug at the private wing in 2015-16.
NHS cancer doctors face the dilemma of wanting patients to have information about the option of paying for drugs that are not funded by the NHS without upsetting them.
Beating Bowel Cancer is considering putting more information about NHS top-ups on its website. Dr Mark Saunders, chairman of its medical advisory board, says charities such as his should inform patients better about co-paying for drugs not funded by the NHS.
Advertisement
He said: “If you have got 10 people, it may be that only one or two know about crowdfunding and can actually do it, and most people, who are equally deserving, don’t do it. You want to make it fair for everyone.”