Healthcare firm warns of postcode lottery over tumours

The gamma knife is used to treat a range of brain conditions but access to the treatment, which uses radiation to focus on targets in the brain without affecting surrounding tissue, varies depending on where patients live.

Now managers of a company providing the treatment at St James’s Hospital in Leeds have urged the NHS to adopt a speedier and more uniform approach to its funding.

Their call comes in the wake of the case of 38-year-old Sarah Hargreaves, of Chesterfield, who was denied treatment when her primary care trust in Derbyshire refused to fund it.

She was eventually offered the treatment after a charity stepped in to pay for it – but the tumour had grown too large to be tackled using the gamma knife.

Nova Healthcare chief executive Ron Gilden said the NHS should widen access to the technology, which prevents the need for open brain surgery and costs half as much.

“There is an urgent need for those responsible for healthcare funding to apply consistent criteria across all postcodes,” he said.

“Delays in the funding approval process and in referring patients for treatment can compromise outcomes and in some cases cost lives. In most cases, we have the ability to treat patients within a week of referral – a timescale which gives them the very best prognosis.”

He said Yorkshire, where funding was pre-approved for appropriate clinical problems, was an example for other parts of the NHS to follow.

“Here all potential gamma knife cases are carefully and comprehensively reviewed by a multi-disciplinary team knowledgeable in all treatment options.

“This should be the case everywhere,” he said.