Cancer care supplies 'under threat after Brexit' say top medics

A group of top doctors has warned supplies used in cancer treatment may be under threat after Brexit.

The medics' warning concerns imports of radioactive isotopes used in cancer treatments, 80 per cent of which are imported to the UK from the EU.

John Buscombe, president-elect of the British Nuclear Medicine Society, told a House of Lords committee on Wednesday: “We do not know what the situation will be [after Brexit].”

He said: “We all hoped we would have an answer by now and we do not. We need more detail than just being told it will not be a problem.

“You have to reinvent what we had 40 years ago [before the UK joined the EU] and all the people who were around 40 years ago are either retired or dead so we do not have the knowledge.”

Medical isotopes are used either to treat cancer by killing diseased cells or to diagnose diseases by injecting a radioactive “tracer” into the body which allows scanner images to be taken of tissues and organs.

They are particularly vulnerable if transportation is delayed, with some isotopes halving in radioactivity every few days.

Imports are usually made from France, Belgium and the Netherlands overnight in order to avoid traffic.

Mr Buscombe said time was running out to build a new regulatory system, and the possibility of increased customs checks after Brexit might mean the NHS having to pay for larger supplies.

“We end up with a patient ready for treatment filling a hospital bed and we cannot treat them because the product has decayed too much.”

He also said Brexit risks making an ongoing skills shortage in nuclear medicine in the UK worse, as 30 per cent of experts are currently recruited from the EU.