Boy's treatment 'may save others'

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The parents of a Leicestershire boy have told a health minister many lives could be saved by ground-breaking cancer treatment he received in the US.

Ros and Paul Barnes took their son Alex, now five, to Florida for proton therapy in October and doctors found no trace of the cancer in February.

The procedure is currently not available in Britain.

But Ros Barnes said they had made some progress from a meeting in London with health minister Ann Keen.

Ms Barnes said: "She's agreed in principle to try to get proton therapy into the UK, but obviously it's up to the planning groups to try decide where, when and how much and to come up with a good plan."

In a statement the Department of Health said NHS funding would be available "for a number of patients to be referred overseas for proton treatment."

In other parts of the European Union, for example France, youngsters can get this treatment. Edward Garnier, MP

Well-wishers in the East Midlands raised £47,000 to pay for Alex to travel to the US for the treatment. His family said the total cost came to more than £120,000.

Surgeons at the Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville removed a rare pea-sized tumour from his brain.

He then underwent weeks of the proton therapy.

Experts believe this treatment can target a tumour more precisely then conventional radiotherapy and it is also thought to to be safer as it does not damage the surrounding tissue.

Edward Garnier, Conservative MP for Harborough, said: "In other parts of the European Union, for example France, youngsters can get this treatment.

"Why does this family have to go all the way to the United States to get what they can get in Paris, but they can't get in Leicester?"

Ros and Paul Barnes had to take their son to America for special proton therapy.