More room needed, say cancer care medics

But health bosses have told them there is nowhere suitable on the Eastern Road hospital site in Brighton for the units to move into and expand.

Anyone who visits or works at the unit can see it desperately needs to expand.

The corridors are so narrow, staff and patients squeeze past each other and the consulting rooms are extremely small.

There are up to 25 staff working from the Nigel Porter Unit, which was built to house less than half that number.

The number of computers cannot be increased because health and safety officers have said there is not enough room. Patients often queue around the corner for appointments.

Consultant surgeon Andrew Yelland, the expert breast care nurses and the administration and support staff agree they would like to expand on a new site at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

But they accept that if there is no alternative, they will make the move to Haywards Heath.

Unlike many areas of the nursing profession, such as geriatric medicine and stressful A&E departments, which fail to attract or retain staff, many of those working within the breast cancer service have dedicated themselves to it.

Mr Yelland, who has worked in the Nigel Porter unit for five years, said: "It would be of benefit to be here and that would be ideal but unfortunately we have to be pragmatic and we can't stay as we are."

Breast care specialist Macmillan nurse Becky Firth, who has worked in the unit for 11 years, said: "No one wants to go and the public support has been wonderfully positive about what we provide here.

"I want to reassure people that we have their best interests at heart and we want to provide the best care."

She agrees the unit must expand to continue its work.

Mr Yelland said: "If the unit is moved, the deal is it will have to be absolutely top notch, with no expense spared, and we want what is best for the population."

Susan Heard, a nurse practitioner in breast care who has worked at the unit for eight years, said: "We can stay here but it's becoming very difficult. We have to keep developing. We're a victim of our own success, really."

One of the reasons highlighted by health chiefs for the move to Haywards Heath is the lack of space at the Nigel Porter Unit and the breast assessment unit.

They are next to each other on the Royal Sussex site and are desperately inadequate to house all the staff, records, equipment and to meet Government standards by which the success of services and trusts are measured.

Health bosses say the breast assessment centre would also be transferred, enabling it to expand and include women aged up to 70 in the screening process, another Government target.

Campaigners say the assessment unit has been neglected because two portable buildings have been rendered useless for months after one of the floors collapsed.

The units have failed to meet the Government recommendation that women with suspected breast cancer are seen by a consultant two weeks after referral.

But campaigners say this is because Brighton Health Care NHS Trust has failed to recruit a second consultant surgeon following Robert Gumpert's retirement in May.

They say the Government standards also fail to recognise the large number of women who are successfully treated.

Senior staff say those figures are harder to collate but a report published in January 2001 outlined the excellent performance of the East Sussex, Brighton and Hove screening programme in terms of cancer detection rates and pre-operative cancer diagnosis rates, which were among the highest in the country.

The most recent national breast cancer survival information, from information collated seven years ago, demonstrated the Nigel Porter Unit success rates were among the highest.

Mr Yelland said although there were problems with waiting times, the service was one of the best in the country.

Staff are hurt by the label of a failing service, when it is one of the most successful units of its kind when it comes to detecting and treating breast cancer.

In the early days of breast cancer treatment, the unit earned its pioneering name through the dedication of staff, including Brian Hogbin and Robert Gumpert, consultants in general surgery in Brighton in the early Seventies.

In 1988, a major development in the provision of breast services was made by the appointment of the first Macmillan breast care nurse in the country at the hospital.

By 1992, Brighton had all the specialists but needed to draw them together, so a campaign was launched to help create the Nigel Porter Unit for Breast Cancer.

A fund-raising campaign was launched and in 1993 the unit was opened, built in the cliff-face under a store room at the hospital.

It is that building which has now become too small to cater for the 40 per cent increase inpatients in the last five years.

The breast care unit has up to 3,000 women a year from all over the region using its facilities. Of these, about 300 face the trauma of being diagnosed with cancer.

Meanwhile, thousands of campaigners have signed our petition demanding the service is expanded at an alternative site in Brighton.