Fresh calls for life-saving prostate cancer scan to be made available in North Wales

A regional Assembly Member has made renewed calls for the Welsh Government to make Multiparametric MRI scans available to suspected prostate cancer patients.

Mark Isherwood AM, yesterday urged the Welsh Government to act on the calls by campaigners for mpMRI scans to be made available across NHS Wales.

Wrexham Maelor Hospital’s urology unit is one of 11 units across England and Wales that took part in the prostate MRI imaging study ‘PROMIS’ trial to discover improved ways of diagnosing prostate cancer.

Although the results showed that 93 per cent of aggressive cancers were detected by using the mpMRI scan to guide the biopsy, compared with just 48 per cent where only a Transrectal ultrasound guided (TRUS) biopsy was carried out, men in North Wales have had to fund the scans themselves because they were not provided or funded by the health board in North Wales.

Yesterday an Assembly Debate focused on a petition – ‘All men in Wales should have access through the NHS to the best possible diagnostic tests for prostate cancer’ – which received 6,345 signatures and was submitted by Stuart Davies, who lives in Clwyd South.

Speaking in the debate, Mr Isherwood said that last March’s announcement by NHS England that it was launching a one-stop service using MRI techniques to revolutionise prostate cancer treatment and slash the time taken for a diagnosis there was a game changer, that men’s lives here are being put at risk and that patients across Wales should not be left behind.

He said: “In January, the Health Minister wrote to members stating that he had asked all Health Boards to work with the Welsh Urology Board to ensure that they have full implementation plans within one month of this.

“In the same letter he stated that “Health Boards have confirmed that at present they deliver care in line with current NICE Guidance”.

“North Wales patients subsequently reiterated that care was not delivered in line with current NICE Guidance in their cases.

“North Wales Community Health Council stated that the Health Board have consistently declined to produce proof that they did any scans for men with rising PSA following a negative biopsy – and that they are co-ordinating refunds to all of their clients who did not receive scans in line with the 2014 guidance.

“They also state that their correspondence with the Health Minister gives them no comfort that he will intervene if they make the same decision on the pre-biopsy mpMRI guidance.:

“This petition’s sponsor, Stuart Davies, states that interim arrangements should be put in place now so that men do not put their lives at risk, that although patients pay approximately £900, the cost to the NHS at Wrexham’s Spire Hospital is only £365 – and that men contacting the campaign say that they are either waiting for it to become free or are taking out loans to pay for their scan.

“Last December, I attended a meeting with Mr Davies, the Health Board and Community Health Council, at which the Health Board apologised and offered to refund the money men had paid for scans.

“However, only this week, a constituent received a letter from the Health Board stating that “although current clinical advice suggests that the use of full diagnostic mpMRI may be beneficial … this has not yet been supported by NICE”.

“Noting, however, that NICE has now backed mpMRI scans as a cost effective first-line investigation, Tenovus Cancer Care have called on the Welsh Government to ensure that mpMRI is available across Wales, stating that it is not available at Betsi Cadwaladr, Hywel Dda or Swansea Bay, and not available at PROMIS standards in Cardiff and Vale.

“As Prostate Cancer UK states, mpMRI revolutionises Prostate Cancer diagnosis, so let’s listen to the experts with lived experience. These men have been telling the truth from the very beginning.”

The petitioner found the lack of consistency between health boards as “unacceptable” and he had been inundated with stories of men who’ve had to have a private scan – sometimes borrowing money to pay for one.

Caroline Jones AM (Ind, South Wales West) spoke of her husband’s experiences. He’s had to undergo testing for prostate cancer, which included a painful biopsy. If he had lived 15 miles to the north-east, he would’ve had a mpMRI scan.

Health Minister, Vaughan Gething said the trials in Wales showed positive signs with clinicians wanting mpMRI rolled-out everywhere. There was a point behind the limited availability of new treatments though:

Mr Gething said: “But there is this point about, when we consider each potential advance in healthcare, what we do as a whole system, and in decision making, to consider the evidence for the best intervention and then to try to take a consistent national approach to delivering it once that evidence base is sound and accepted.

“So, NICE are committed to publishing their revised guidelines in April.”

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