Women suffering gynaecological cancer will have to travel to Ipswich for surgery under another shake-up of services.

Patients who would have been treated at Colchester General Hospital and St John's Hospital, Chelmsford, will see surgery centralised to Ipswich Hospital by 2003.

Under the plans, announced by the Mid Anglia Cancer Network (MACN), other rarer forms of cancers, such as head and neck, urology and blood cancer, will also be based under one roof.

These could be centred at either Colchester or Chelmsford.

People with more common cancers, including breast and lung, will continue to be treated at the nearest of the three sites.

Under the plans for gynaecological surgery, women would be referred to Suffolk for the operation and on average remain in hospital for five to six days.

All other aspects of their care, from the initial referral by their GP to follow-up appointments after surgery, would continue at their local hospital in either Colchester or Chelmsford.

Currently about 300 women a year in the MACN area undergo surgery for gynaecological cancer. That is about 100 each in Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich.

Health chiefs say the changes will mean an improvement in care, allowing specialists to work closely together without "diluting expertise" across the region.

Dr David Blainey, MACN lead clinician, said: "It is nationally accepted that it is best practice with rarer forms of cancer, such as gynaecological cancers, to concentrate surgery in a small number of centres."

But North Essex Community Health Council said it would want patients' minds to be put at rest about transport problems and follow-up care.

Published Wednesday November 28, 2001