Treatment pledge over Borders cancer service switch

The cost of upgrading services at the Borders General has been put at £1.5m

Cancer patients in the Borders should notice no difference in their treatment when chemotherapy dispensing services move to Edinburgh, it has been claimed.

Pharmacy director Alison Wilson said she believed things could run smoothly after the move planned for next summer.

The switch is being made due to the £1.5m cost of bringing services at the Borders General up to standard.

However, there remains concern about increased drug wastage due to the move which NHS Borders hopes to tackle.

At present, up to 200 patients each month receive treatment for various cancers at the Borders Macmillan Centre outside Melrose.

Prior to each treatment, the preparation of required dosage takes place within the neighbouring Borders General Hospital (BGH) following a toxicity blood test on the patient.

However, with the planned relocation of the aseptic pharmacy to the Western General in Edinburgh next year, changes in blood testing procedures will need to be made.

"Bloods need to be taken 24 to 48 hours before the next treatment to test for toxicity, and will mean that some appointments will have to be made on a Sunday," said Ms Wilson.

She said the hospital would look at how to change scheduling to suit patients.

"Taking the aseptic pharmacy to the Western General really just means that cancer treatments - chemotherapy in particular - will be coming from a different place," she said.

"We at BGH will still pull it all together, along with anything the patient needs to take orally, and then it will be sent to the Macmillan Centre for administration."

The move is being made due to the high cost of upgrading the current unit at the BGH.

The service is being moved to Edinburgh in the summer of 2023

Other larger health boards have consolidated their aseptic pharmacies across their hospital estates into single units, in line with the NHS Scotland Shared Services Health Portfolio business case from 2017.

However, using a 45-mile delivery service for short shelf-life drugs will come at a cost for the health board - estimated to be £280,000 at today's prices - and will require a greater dependency on purchasing pre-filled doses.

"We are starting to work on how we can bring wastage down," Ms Wilson said.

"Nobody wants to be putting chemotherapy drugs into the incineration process and we will work closely with NHS Lothian to see how we can minimise the levels of wastage.

"We already receive radiotherapy products from NHS Lothian and once we have worked through the teething problems this should run just as smoothly - and patients shouldn't notice any difference from the service they receive just now."

The relocation of the aseptic pharmacy to the Western General Hospital is scheduled for June next year.