Mum fundraising for cancer treatment not on NHS

A mum-of-two has been fundraising for private medical treatment after being diagnosed with cancer.

Hannah Quigley-McKie, from Stretford, Greater Manchester, booked an optician's appointment after noticing flickers in her vision following her father's death in 2023, and was subsequently diagnosed with an ocular melanoma.

On learning the cancer had spread to her liver, she has been fundraising for chemosaturation treatment, which is not available on the NHS.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a former Health Secretary, told BBC Radio Manchester he "completely sympathised" with her situation, and said he would be happy to meet Ms Quigley-McKie and raise her case with NHS England.

"When new treatments come along, they have to be assessed by the NHS, and obviously there's often equipment that needs to go into hospitals to support the delivery of it and it takes time," said Burnham.

Chemosaturation treatment currently costs about £46,000 per round in a private healthcare setting.

An NHS representative said National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides guidance for healthcare practitioners, "places no requirement on the NHS to make this treatment routinely available to patients and notes that chemosaturation can cause serious complications in some patients".

Burnham said: "Even if the NHS hasn't adopted it, if it recognises it as a valid treatment, I think there should be arrangements for people to receive it on NHS terms."

An optician noticed Ms Quigley-McKie's retina was detached during an eye-health test at their branch in 2023, and referred her to hospitals in Manchester and Liverpool for further tests.

The 39-year-old said specialists soon found "a whopping tumour - I'll call it - in my eye".

The tumour was removed during a number of operations, leaving her eyesight "even worse than when I started, which they did warn me about," she says.

"The operations that they had done were to save my eye - not my vision."

Ms Quigley-McKie, who is married with two children, underwent a fifth round of surgery this week, after scar tissue caused her retina to detach again.

She has also learnt the tumour has spread to her liver.

She says she does not have the correct blood type to undergo treatment using available drugs, and immunotherapy will only prolong her life by about five months.

This leaves her with the alternative of chemosaturation, which is a non-surgical treatment for liver cancer available privately, but not on the NHS.

Each treatment costs £46,000 and she needs about six rounds, so - with the support of family and friends - Ms Quigley-McKie has been fundraising to help pay for it.

Speaking ahead of her latest surgery, Ms Quigley-McKie said she had drawn strength from her family, describing her 10-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter as "troopers".

"They're amazing - very resilient.

"But again, they're only human. They have moments where they struggle. But I have moments when I'm struggling and they've picked me up, and when they're struggling, I pick them up.

"You have to be positive because what's the alternative? The alternative's unthinkable.

"People say I'm brave, but for the first time in my life, I'm just doing what I'm told to.

"If anything can be learnt from my experience, [it's] have your eye-health tested."

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