Ashya King's removal from hospital 'put him at risk', report finds

Ashya King's parents said in March their son was now free of cancer

A boy with a brain tumour taken from Southampton Hospital by his parents without telling staff was put at risk by their actions, a report has found.

Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Board has studied how the authorities reacted to the case of Ashya King.

The report also said the hospital should have acted sooner to get a second opinion about different treatment plans for the five year old.

His story received global attention in 2014 when his parents took him abroad.

Brett and Naghemeh King, of Southsea, were later arrested and held in a prison in Madrid.

They had wanted him to undergo proton beam therapy in Prague, which had not been recommended by his care team in Southampton.

The couple were later released and the therapy took place.

In March, the King family said Ashya was cancer free.

Ashya King received proton beam therapy in Prague

The report recommends that the government review the options available to professionals when children they are concerned about are taken abroad.

It said the medical professionals involved "worked hard to ensure the best outcomes for the child and his family".

But it added: "Unfortunately, the parents felt that their wishes and feelings about his treatment were not being given sufficient priority and they chose to disengage from the medical professionals and remove him from the hospital placing him at risk of serious harm if anything untoward had happened with regard to the nasogastric tube [through which he was fed].

"Professionals in the hospital attempted to accommodate the parents' wishes but did not respond speedily to their request for a second opinion.

"Additionally the parents were not happy... that the National Clinical Expert Group would not fund Proton Beam Therapy as it did not meet the criteria for financial support ."

It described the "limited options" available to agencies after the family fled the UK as "partly a result of the parents concealing the actions they had taken to ensure his safety and were compounded by them failing to respond to attempts to contact them".

It concluded the management of the situation across these different agencies "could have been stronger".

"This was particularly important because of the significant degree of media interest which... risked a loss of public confidence in child safeguarding in circumstances such as this."