Ashya King's parents hit back at report which claims they 'reduced his survival chances by 30 per cent'
The family of Ashya King have described a medical report that claimed their actions had lowered their son's survival chances by 30% as "disappointing" and "unclear".
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The hospital accused of trying to block the five-year-old from having pioneering radiotherapy has been cleared by an official child protection report.
It also makes clear that his parents' failure to allow him to have chemotherapy, which they had agreed to after fleeing the country, has reduced his chances of survival from 80 per cent to 50 per cent.
advrtise
Ashya's parents, Brett and Naghmeh King, claimed they took the five-year-old abroad - still attached to a feeding tube - because they feared Southampton General Hospital was about to block alternative proton radiotherapy treatment not available in the UK.
Mr King said: "We are disappointed and surprised that this report has been leaked to the media before we have been given a chance to review it.
"The report fails to make it clear that the decision not to give Ashya chemotherapy was on the advice of the health professionals, including a leading European expert on oncology who is designated through our Portsmouth-based GP .
"We would like to make it very clear once again that any decision on Ashya's treatment has not been made on the basis of our beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. This is inferred in the report but in truth Ashya is not a Jehovah's Witness and will not become one unless he decides to be baptised and we always made that clear to the hospital."
The probe, by the Child Safeguarding Board in Ashya's home town of Portsmouth, has established that the hospital acted appropriately when his parents walked out of the hospital with him without warning in August last year.
It found that Southampton General Hospitals' care had been correct and it had been acting in Ashya's best interests, although it could have been quicker in arranging a second opinion for the youngster.
The hospital, police and social services were accused of a "heavy-handed" approach towards the Kings, that saw them arrested when found in Spain.
But a leaked copy of the report makes it clear that the child's life was in serious danger if the feeding tube had become blocked or dislodged and that his parents had not been shown how to use the tube.
This was because the youngster was considered too ill to even be allowed home for the weekend and because the hospital felt that even if he had been well enough, the family "could not be trusted because they had not listened to medical advice on other issues".
The report claimed the hospital's relationship with Ashya's parents had been problematic and they had allegedly blocked and delayed a number of routine tests for the youngster.
It said: "It was difficult getting the parents to comply with some clinical and medical requests. They delayed an important test of spinal fluid and also delayed the insertion of a shunt designed to drain fluid from the brain."
Ashya's parents, says the report, had also disregarded nursing advice on several occasions and there were concerns that this was affecting his care. A meeting had to be held with them about their "lack of willingness to accept guidance from health professionals".
Ashya King (Julian Simmonds/The Telegraph)
Hospital staff have repeatedly insisted there was not any intention of stopping the Kings taking Ashya for proton beam radiotherapy abroad, even though they believed the outcome would be no different to standard radiotherapy.
At the time, medical staff were liaising with the family to make arrangements for him to go abroad for radiotherapy. An international police hunt was mounted because it was feared the device keeping the poorly youngster alive could stop working and place him at risk of possible death.
Ashya came back to the UK earlier this month after 10 months abroad. Parents Brett and Naghmeh are claiming he has made a miracle recovery after proton beam therapy in Prague.
But the report makes clear that their failure to allow their son to have chemotherapy had reduced his chances or survival from almost 80 per cent to just 50 per cent.
The report is described as a "learning review". Its authors are understood to have interviewed the Kings as part of their research.
Triple therapy is the "gold standard" internationally-agreed treatment and Ashya's chances of survival over five years are now 50 per cent instead of 80-85 per cent.
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