A terminally ill cancer patient has protested after the NHS hospital where she receives palliative therapy included advertisements for a private clinic with her appointment letter.
Ali Schofield, 33, who has secondary breast cancer, said the inclusion of the leaflets for Nova Healthcare was “disgusting” and “distressing”. It would make patients believe that NHS care was “second class” and they should pay for private treatment.
“I felt really cold when I saw the leaflet because it suggested that I would have better healthcare if I was to go private,” she said. “It offered me access to the latest technologies and made me think: so what am I getting now? It’s disgusting. It puts the seed of doubt into you.”
Schofield, a lifestyle journalist and collage artist, said she was appalled that the NHS had used her medical records to include promotional material for a private company. She also criticised the fact that posters for Nova have been put on the walls of the oncology unit at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds where she goes for her chemotherapy.
Nova, which has a contract with NHS England to provide specialist “gamma knife” radiotherapy, uses the fourth floor of the Bexley Wing at St James’s to offer consultations and daycare for private patients, while NHS patients including Schofield receive their treatment on the first floor…. read more
