Annex 8: Summary of the Committee's Visit
to St Mary's Hospital
18th July 2000
St MARY'S HOSPITAL, PADDINGTON
St Mary's Hospital is a large general hospital which
provides all the normal services of a modern District General
Hospital to the West London area. On the same site is the Imperial
College School of Medicine. St Mary's and Imperial are collaborating
with the Hull Royal Infirmary and the University of Hull to develop
pilot programmes in CT detection of lung and colo-rectal cancers.
Both sites have a new generation of CT scanner which can perform
low radiation dose high-speed "multi-slice" scans of
patients and is used, amongst other applications, to detect and
locate lung and colorectal cancer. This machine, manufactured
by Marconi Medical Systems UK Ltd, is one of only a handful available
in the NHS.
Meetings with: The Baroness Hanham CBE, Chairman
of St Mary's Hospital Trust; Professor Ara Darzi, Director of
Academic Surgical Unit, Imperial College; Professor John Monson,
Head of Academic Surgical Unit, University of Hull; Dr David Breen,
Consultant Abdominal Radiologist, Hull Royal Infirmary; Dr Onn
Min Kon, Consultant Respiratory Physician, St Mary's Hospital;
Dr Andrew Wright, Head of CT Unit, St Marys Hospital; Dr Paul
Thomas, General Practitioner and Director, West London, Research
Network and David Waldron, Managing Director, Marconi Medical
Systems UK Ltd.
Topics discussed:
The benefits of using CT scanning for early diagnosis
of lung and bowel cancer, compared with conventional techniques;
the potential benefits of CT screening of high risk individuals
for the prognosis and survival of bowel cancer compared with blood
testing, colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy; the public image
of bowel cancer; the prognosis of all symptomatic lung cancer
patients and the potential benefits of CT screening of high risk
individuals for lung cancer survival; the health economic benefits
of screening and early treatment compared with the cost of managing
terminal disease; the failure of Culyer money to deliver benefit
to researchers; CT guided minimal invasive therapy for lung and
bowel cancer using localised radiofrequency ablation in conjunction
with chemotherapy; the waiting lists for treatment; the Two Week
Wait; NHS purchasing processes for modern equipment; Marconi's
offer to the Government of a Public Private Partnership to develop
a network of modern CT scanning facilities across the NHS.
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