Council responds to Mount Vernon Cancer Centre consultation

The council firmly believes that having an additional radiotherapy facility at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, would have a positive impact on the health of residents. See the council’s full response below.

This is an issue of huge importance to our residents, and beyond engaging with the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as a Council we have brought this issue to our Health and Social Care Review Group, Luton’s Health and Wellbeing Board, and a number of non-statutory groups, including our Health Equity Town Partnership Board, which includes key system partners from the NHS and VCSFE groups.

These forums, with a clear shared objective to tackle the health and life inequity experienced by Luton’s residents, our neighbourhoods and communities relative to England, have, with this objective in mind, conveyed a  clear message: that Option C, moving specialised cancer services to a purpose-built new Centre on an acute (main) hospital site (Watford General Hospital) with an additional radiotherapy facility at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital in Luton, would deliver by far the best, most equitable outcome for Luton residents, and for communities north of Watford General Hospital. This aligns with a key criterion of the consultation and decision-making process, a decision based on tackling health inequity and disparities. Locating a networked Radiotherapy Centre at Luton and Dunstable Hospital as set out in Option C increases access to essential cancer health services for the most deprived communities.  

If tackling inequity for the most deprived area in the MVCC ‘patch’ is a priority – the decision should be clear. 
• Luton residents already experience poorer cancer outcomes, including:
o Poor 1-year cancer survival rates - As highlighted in the consultation, Luton patients have the poorest rates of 1-year cancer survival in the MVCC footprint (69.3% compared to 78.3% in Barnet, the highest area - source: MVCC Consultation document).
o High mortality from some cancers - Luton has a particularly high mortality (death) from some cancers, including prostate cancer (3rd worst in the country) and bladder cancer (3rd worst in the country overall (for men and women) and 2nd worst in country for males (source: Fingertips 2022-24 data).

• Luton residents face significant deprivation and are more likely to face transport and logistical issues in accessing care further from home. 
o Luton is one of the most deprived places in the country – The local authority ranks 45/296 (where 1 is the most deprived) in the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025
o Travel is a factor in accessing care – Radiotherapy treatment can last for up to six weeks, with patients attending up to five days a week. Ability to travel is therefore a key part of accessing care, with the consultation document highlighting that ‘Some patients have told us they have declined treatments such as radiotherapy due to the distance they need to travel.’ To get our residents to their essential treatment Luton has had to implement a special transport scheme to enable patients to travel for cancer care at the current MVCC location. 
o Car access is lower in Luton than elsewhere - 25% of households in Luton do not have access to a car, compared to 15.6% in Hertfordshire (source: Census 2021).
o Options A and B are not as easily accessible by public transport, with long journey times for Luton residents and others – Neither Watford nor Lister hospitals are easily accessible by public transport for people in Luton and those for whom Luton and Dunstable Hospital would be the easiest location to access. With a journey time by public transport of 1hr 37 and 1hr 2 minutes respectively, compared to 24 minutes for Luton & Dunstable hospital and good bus links to areas in and around Luton (source: Google maps). This would vastly improve the patient experience for many, another of the consultation’s key criterion. 
o Option C also serves non-Luton residents - This is not only about Luton residents, but about the larger geography served by the new centre: 1,700 of the people who attend MVCC would live closer to Luton and Dunstable Hospital than to Watford General Hospital, for the Lister Hospital this is 1,300 people.
o Luton residents have poorer access to other treatment options. For example, for residents in North and East Hertfordshire there are direct transport links to Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s radiotherapy services as an alternative accessible treatment location, which Luton residents do not have access to. 
o Luton residents have the lowest household income in the East of England region - Luton has a lower gross disposable household income per head than the national average, £16,871 in comparison to £21,433. Luton has the lowest household income in the region (source: Employment and earnings in Luton). Paying for public transport or taxis will therefore have a disproportionate impact for Luton residents and our residents tell us that this can contribute to a decision not to access treatment.
o Luton residents are more likely to be in insecure employment – An analysis of employment and earnings  in Luton suggests that there has been an increase in unstable and zero-hours contract work in Luton, linked to a relatively young population with low levels of qualifications. This may make it more difficult for Luton residents to take time off work to attend for sustained treatment if they are working age. If they are supporting older parents to attend for their treatment taking the time off work to assist with travel and care may also affect their employment. Option C provides opportunities for boosting wider health outcomes in the town: Luton’s unemployment rate is 5.6%, much higher than our neighbouring authorities, and we know that secure employment has a positive impact on health equity.

• Integration with Local Services and Workforce:  
o Luton Council can support the NHS build a resilient workforce – Luton Council is a strong health and care partner of Luton and Dunstable Hospital Trust and we are currently working together to support employment opportunities for Luton residents. Luton council is confident through our shared work that locating networked radiotherapy to the Luton site will develop infrastructure and workforce at the L&D that makes it an attractive option for the radiotherapy unit. Luton Council has recently launched Connect To Work, supporting those entering the workforce with the skills and resilience needed. This, alongside other workforce support offered by the council and our system partners can ensure that Luton and Dunstable Hospital can recruit and retain a workforce that will provide resilience to the proposed radiotherapy unit. This in turn would create local employment opportunities, for good quality, secure role, further supporting workforce resilience and employment opportunities across the Luton system. 
o Luton and Dunstable hospital’s existing services can support this unit – Per the ‘Integration with co-located services’, Luton and Dunstable Hospital’s existing acute services are well set up to provide support to cancer services and the proposed new unit, including the existing Cancer Centre and the Macmillan Cancer unit.
• Luton residents from global majority backgrounds report low trust and some poor experiences of cancer care; having care available locally, at a trusted hospital location would increase access and attendance. 
o Luton’s population is highly diverse – Over half (55%) of Luton residents are from backgrounds other than White British (source: 2021 Census). 
o Our community engagement suggests that Luton’s diverse community has had some poor experiences of cancer care. Over the past 3 years, Luton’s Public Health team has led the Cancer Connectors project - a 3-year Macmillan-funded programme of community engagement on experiences of cancer and cancer care. This has found that, for Luton’s Black, South Asian and Eastern European communities, trust in health and cancer care remains fragile. Numerous residents reported experiences of dismissal, stereotyping, or rushed consultations, reinforcing a perception that services are not designed for them. One community participant (South Asian, female) spoke about her experience and said, “Sometimes they [cancer health professionals] don’t mean harm, but they don’t understand our way of talking about illness” (source: Macmillan Cancer Connectors report – in preparation). 
o Having a locally accessible cancer service could help to support cultural competence and build trust - having locally embedded radiotherapy services could help to ensure that services are culturally aware and competent, and to build trust within our communities. Locating radiotherapy services at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, a trusted location offers an important opportunity to increase attendance and the ability to sustain concordance with treatment for a population with worse health outcomes. Building this cultural competence and trust among Luton’s diverse community would support another of the consultation’s criterion, ‘Integration with co-located services’ – locating radiotherapy services in Luton is an opportunity to improve patient pathways for some of our most deprived communities.

Finally, we are keen to highlight that the same issues of deprivation, difficult life circumstances and diverse backgrounds that can make it difficult for Luton residents to access cancer care, will also affect their likelihood and ability to respond to this consultation – despite the best efforts of the council and many others. We hope that the decision regarding the options set out in the consultation will be made based on which option best achieves improved outcomes and reduced health inequalities, rather than the option that receives the highest ‘response rate.’

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this consultation. If helpful we would be more than happy to discuss any of the issues raised in more detail.

Kind regards,

Cllr Hazel Simmons, Leader, Luton Council

Cllr Richard Underwood, chair, Luton Scrutiny Health & Social Care Review Group

To have your say, visit the Mount Vernon Cancer Review centre website.