NHS should scrap bell-ringing ceremonies, says cancer patient who has had 88 rounds of chemo

The NHS should scrap bell-ringing ceremonies that signal the end of cancer treatment, says a patient battling the disease.

In cancer wards, hospitals and clinics, when a patient has completed radiotherapy or chemotherapy, they are often encouraged to ring a bell to show they have ‘beaten’ the disease.

The ceremonies, which began in the US in the 1990s and were introduced to the UK in 2013, now feature at more than 250 hospitals. Staff clap and family members cheer while the patient reads out a poem – and often post a video online.

They are such a symbol of beating cancer that the charity Children with Cancer UK has a child ringing a bell on its logo.

A patient battling breast cancer has said bell-ringing ceremonies that signal the end of treatment should be scrapped. Pictured is Josh Cubbin ringing a bell on a ward

But Jo Taylor, founder of campaign group After Breast Cancer Diagnosis, has called for the ‘brash’ bells to be scrapped. The mother-of-two, 50, has undergone 88 rounds of treatment since being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Mrs Taylor, of Diggle, near Oldham, said: ‘For those of us living with recurrent cancer who have little prospect of being cured, hearing this bell being rung is like a kick in the teeth.’

She added: ‘Living with recurrent breast cancer is hard. It feels as if the disease has one aim – it wants to kill the person it’s growing in. For those who are shouldering this burden, it’s important that we avoid adding to it.

‘I am sure that I am not the only person who has heard the end-of- treatment bell and left the unit in despair, weeping on the way home from treatment which we know will not cure us.

‘People think it’s an encouraging thing to have a bell. I disagree, I think it’s divisive and cruel. For me, it just reminds me of my own mortality and that I will never get to ring it because I will never finish treatment.’

Mrs Taylor, who has a life expectancy of two to three years, points out that as many as 30 per cent of patients who ring the bell when they finish treatment for primary stage breast cancer will, like her, develop secondary cancer in another part of the body. 

Josh Cubbin's mother Jane, 44, pictured with her son, said: 'To take the bells away would just be heartbreaking – they have brought joy and hope to so many since it came to the UK'

Josh Cubbin’s mother Jane, 44, pictured with her son, said: ‘To take the bells away would just be heartbreaking – they have brought joy and hope to so many since it came to the UK’

A study of whether the bells are helpful or harmful has been carried out by Dr Patrick Williams, from the University of Southern California, and involved 210 patients.

He said: ‘We found that the bell worsens patients’ memories of treatment…. Ringing a bell on the final day of cancer treatment may be an example of a bad practice with good intentions.’ 

But a spokesman for charity Children with Cancer UK said: ‘Many of the families we support view them as a symbol of hope and strength; ringing the bell marks the end of what is often a long period of cancer treatment.’

The bells are distributed by End of Treatment Bells, a charity founded by Tracey Payton, from Manchester.

She first saw the bells used when her daughter Emma, then eight, had proton beam therapy in 2013 in Oklahoma to treat a cancer of the cheekbone. She was then treated at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital which installed the UK’s first bell.

Mrs Payton declined to comment but her friend Jane Cubbin, 44, whose son Josh, eight, has undergone cancer treatment at the hospital, said: ‘Tracey feels genuinely sorry if anybody is distressed by it – that is not the intention of what these bells are about. 

To take the bells away would just be heartbreaking – they have brought joy and hope to so many since it came to the UK.’

Radiographer Lydia Dearing, of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, had a bell installed on her ward. She said: ‘Patients can sometimes suffer side effects as a result of treatment – so, for those who are going through a bit of a tough time, it can give hope or help to remind them that there is an end in sight.’

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