Rugby College: Dallaglio attacks cancer "disgrace": Former England rugby captain condemns ...

Former England rugby captain slams NHS bosses as a ‘national disgrace’

Accuses the health service of ‘turning the clock back’ on cancer treatment

Sportsman has raised millions of pounds since launching Dallaglio charity

By

John Stevens

Published:

01:32, 7 July 2014

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Updated:

01:32, 7 July 2014

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The former England rugby captain has slammed NHS bosses for their U-turn on funding cancer treatment

Former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio has described NHS bosses as a â€˜national disgraceâ€™ for going back on a deal to fund cutting-edge cancer treatment.

The sports star, who lost his mother Eileen to cancer in 2008, accused the health service of â€˜turning the clock backâ€™ on cancer treatment by refusing to pay for a revolutionary radiotherapy treatment.

Stereotatic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) targets beams very precisely at the tumour allowing high doses of radiation to be delivered with less risk of it affecting surrounding organs.

Patients on average need only five visits to hospital, rather than the average of 25 for other cancer treatments, and can usually go home the same day.

Mr Dallaglio was asked to work with the NHS to devise a plan after he approached David Cameron with concerns that not enough patients had access to the lifesaving treatment.

But after health bosses ditched the proposal to give it to an extra 2,000 patients, Mr Dallaglio has accused NHS England of â€˜going back on its wordâ€™ and written to the Health Secretary to ask him to intervene.

In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, Mr Dallaglio said NHS England had â€˜savagedâ€™ the availability of the technology â€˜the rest of the civilised world uses as a matter of routineâ€™ so only a â€˜pitiful number of patientsâ€™ would be treated.

He wrote: â€˜In my view what NHS England is doing now is a national disgrace. While their new chief executive talks about employing 50 new commissioners and focusing on better management structures, our cancer clinicians are denied the use of technologies to treat patients that the rest of the civilised world uses as a matter of routine.â€™

He added: â€˜The way NHS England are approaching this is turning the clock back on the way weâ€™re treating cancer.

Weâ€™re not just standing still and doing nothing, weâ€™re turning the clock back. It angers me.â€™

Mr Dallaglio was drafted in after he last year wrote to the Prime Minister to warn that Britain was â€˜falling behind the rest of the worldâ€™ in the use of advanced radiotherapy.

He was asked by Jeremy Hunt to work with NHS England to devise a plan to improve the service and they agreed to a Â£5million deal to more than double the number of patients treated and extend the types of cancer treated.

Dallaglio lost his mother Eileen to cancer in 2008 and has since raised more than Â£1m for charitable causes

NHS England pledged to conduct clinical trials on using the treatment on spine, liver and pelvis cancers, and ensure it was available in hospitals around Britain.

But it has now told Mr Dallaglio that the clinical trials will not take place, it will only treat half the patients it previously pledged and it will not start the work until April.

In his letter to Mr Hunt, Mr Dallaglio wrote: â€˜It is bad enough that NHS England is going back on its word regarding these patient numbers but we are not even being given a guarantee that the pitiful numbers they are proposing will definitely start being treated in the next financial year.

â€˜I am surprised that you are allowing all of this to happen under your stewardship.â€™

In 2012, David Cameron promised that all NHS patients would get â€˜innovative radiotherapy where clinically appropriate, safe and cost-effectiveâ€™.

Dallaglio, pictured playing for England and London Wasps in 2008 and 2007 respectively, has slammed the NHS after the organisation backtracked on clinical trials and the number of patients to receive them

New figures compiled by Tessa Munt, the Liberal Democrat MP, show that the number of patients being offered advanced radiotherapy fell by 10 per cent last year.

A total of 645 patients were treated in 2012-13 compared to568 in the year to April.

Mrs Munt said: â€˜This data shows that NHS England is making David Cameronâ€™s promise to increase patient access to innovative radiotherapy into a farce. In contrast to his promise to save more lives, NHS England is simply letting patients die.â€™

Mr Dallaglio is holding an event in the House of Commons today to try to persuade the government to act.

Britain currently ranks third from bottom in the European league table of cancer survival rates.

The sportsman, who won the rugby union World Cup in 2003, has become a charity campaigner and raised millions of pounds since launching the Dallaglio Foundation following his motherâ€™s death.

Dr Sean Duffy, NHS Englandâ€™s National Clinical Director For Cancer, last night said: â€˜If money were no object it would be great to fund every experimental treatment that we are lobbied on, but thatâ€™s not the reality, so instead our priority this year has been investing hundreds of millions of pounds in cancer and other specialised treatments that are actually proven to work for patients.â€™