Aysha King Treatment To Be Funded By N H S

[Zacs-Master]

So, what are your thoughts now?

[pixie373]

About time.

[woofgang]

yup, should have done it in the first place.

[Mamyalynne]

Thank goodness.

[jourdain2]

What a waste of time, money and effort because they would not do this in the first place.

[buildersmate]

NHS managers are prats.
It rewards those who take things into their own hands, cost untold effort in trying to track them down across three countries, all in an effort to get their own way. Now they also get it free.
Reminds others to undertake the same foolish stunt when they can't get their own way.

[pixie373]

It's appalling that they had to. I doubt it's made their lives easier in any way.

[Zacs-Master]

NHS are at fault for reporting them to police. If they hadn't hounded the parents and separated him from the parents this would never have happened. I only hope the treatment is / was effective

[bednobs]

what do you mean it would never had happened? It already had happened - that's why they reported them!

[Tilly2]

I hope it works.

[Zacs-Master]

Bednobs, as I said I hope it was effective.

[China Doll]

I'm a bit behind with this story so without wishing to be offensive or contentious or insensitive (and probably succeeding in being all of those things); is this treatment likely to be effective for the type of cancer this child has? If not, then I think it would be a waste of NHS money and is just being done to try and compensate for a shambles of a case. If it is clinically effective then I agree, they should have done it in the first place.

[Gromit]

Difficult to read what this means.
Is it an admission they were wrong not to fund it in the first place?
Or are they pandering to public opinion?

A sad sorry mess from start to finish.

[woofgang]

China, as I understand it, the answer to your question is maybe...

[Zacs-Master]

Exactly Gromit. At first they (Southampton hospital) said there was no treatment and now the NHS seem to have found the funds to treat him abroad. Strange.

[pixie373]

I think the answer is "maybe" too. They are wrong either way now. They should either have given him the chance in the first place- or they are going along with it because of public opinion. I just hope it works.

[China Doll]

I don't really think 'maybe' is good enough to be brutally honest with my NHS employee head on but as a parent you'd take a 'maybe'.

[pixie373]

There's only ever a "maybe". No guarantees.

[boxtops]

I suspect (but have no evidence) that this might be due to the way that treatments are funded. So much "routine" treatment is contracted up front with a hospital by the central NHS - if people want different treatment or to go outside the country for it, it's dealt with in a different way, each one on its merits. It could be (but again, speculation) that Southampton wasn't funded directly for this particular treatment, but their clinical commissioning group was able to identify funds for him to have the treatment in Prague. These things can take weeks to decide - it's not an overnight decision, it goes through a lot of scrutiny.

[China Doll]

True Pixie, but there are treatments that have a higher percentage of success than others and that's what I'd be most interested in as an employee of NHS. But as a parent, you'd clutch at anything. The whole thing is a *** shambles and I agree entirely with Gromit's summary.

[Gromit]

The Proton treatment is not currently available in this country, but the NHS is part funding the building of two treatment centres, on at Christies in Manchester and one in Cambridge.
It will be interesting to see whether, when the NHS can do the treatment in-house, that other children similar to Asya King will or will not be referred to the the new centres.