Boy, 12, denied NHS cancer therapy given all-clear after Turkey radiotherapy

Charlie Ilsley, from Emmer Green in Reading, was treated at a hospital in Turkey

Toni Ilsley Charlie Ilsley — Charlie Ilsley, from Emmer Green in Reading, was treated at a hospital in Turkey

A woman who took her son abroad for life-saving cancer treatment says she is angry it was not offered on the NHS.

Charlie Ilsley, 12, from Reading, has been told he is clear of cancer after receiving targeted radiotherapy on spinal tumours in Turkey.

His mother, Toni Ilsley, said her boy would have died if she had not been able to fundraise the necessary money.

NHS England said the treatment was "not always clinically appropriate" and its doctors' decisions were "difficult".

Charlie has been given the all-clear after receiving targeted radiotherapy

Charlie had surgery to remove a brain tumour in 2015, but the cancer later returned on his spine.

Mrs Ilsley said doctors at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford told the family there was nothing more that could be done to stop the spread.

However, she researched targeted radiotherapy treatments abroad and began fundraising for the estimated £100,000 they would need.

Mrs Ilsley said Charlie has now been given the all-clear by the same clinical team that deemed him untreatable 18 months ago.

Toni Ilsley told the BBC that she is angry Charlie could not receive the treatment in England

Toni Ilsley and her son Charlie — Toni Ilsley told the BBC that she is angry Charlie could not receive the treatment in England

"If I had listened to them Charlie wouldn't be here now - it doesn't bear thinking about," she said.

"When Charlie had his first scan in Turkey and the first treatment was working, I remember feeling really happy... and then angry that this couldn't be done in my own country."

NHS England said it could not comment on individual cases.

In a statement, it added: "Decisions about the right treatment are difficult, which is why they are made by clinical experts.

"The NHS does fund this treatment for lung cancer as well as research into other types of cancer, however it is not always clinically appropriate or a better treatment than others already available on the NHS."