Anger mounted yesterday over a refusal by health chiefs to use three mothballed cancer centres.

The units, set up by world-leading oncologist Professor Karol Sikora, are now in the hands of a private equity firm after going bust last year.

But experts claim tens of thousands of stricken patients could be diagnosed and treated if only the NHS agreed to negotiate rather than allow equipment to “gather dust” at a time cancer targets are routinely missed.

Prof Sikora, 75, called the continued closures a “national scandal”.

He wants to meet Health Secretary Steve Barclay and NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard in a bid to reopen the hubs in Newport in South Wales, Reading, Berks, and Northumberland.

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Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies said: “The Rutherford centre in Newport could treat 2,000 patients a year. With record backlogs in our Welsh NHS, all potential solutions must be considered.” Oncology professor Roger Taylor, of Swansea University, said: “The ex-Rutherford centres have state-of-the-art scanners and machines. Instead of lying unused, they could be used for patients.”

The NHS says 93 percent of urgent suspected cancer referrals should be seen by a specialist within two weeks but the rate in May was 80.8 percent.

Rutherford, set up in 2015, was forced to close last June in the wake of financial difficulties during Covid.

Prof Sikora said: “To have them sitting empty at a time of record waits and unnecessary deaths is truly a national scandal.”

NHS England said: “The NHS has purchased just under 200 new scanners over the last year, including previous Rutherford assets as part of a £2.3billion investment. Thanks in part to this, 2.9 million patients had urgent cancer checks in 2022/23 – 300,000 more than in the year before the pandemic.”

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