A WIDOW fighting for better treatment of patients involved in cancer drugs trials met senior hospital officials who vowed to improve the system.

Last month, the Oxford Mail reported how Andy Witney, a former Cowley car plant warehouseman, died an ‘unimaginable’ death after agreeing to take part in clinical drugs tests.

An inquest into his death heard he was left reeling in agony, and was found on his bed at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital, naked, covered in his own excrement, in desperate need of painkillers and without adequate nursing care due to staff shortages.

Mr Witney’s wife Karen vowed to get the clinical trials system changed and now believes other patients and families will not suffer the way her husband did.

After meeting her on Monday, senior staff at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust agreed to work with Mrs Witney to improve the system.

Mrs Witney, from Lyndworth Close, Headington, Oxford, said she got a positive response to her main wishes.

Where a patient suffers a severe adverse reaction (SAR) from a drug trial, she requested: l A private ambulance or ambulance car to take the patient to the Churchill.

l A private room to be ready and available at all times throughout the duration of the trial should it be needed as a result of an SAR.

l On admission to the Churchill as a result of an SAR, a trials doctor/consultant/professor to immediately attend to ascertain the situation.

l Nursing care to be given 24 hours until such time as the patient recovers or dies.

Mrs Witney said: “I think they’re terrified I’m going to sue, but it’s something I feel so strongly about.

“I believe the trials conducted in this country are absolutely vital to the advancement of our drugs to hopefully find a cure, but they have to be handled with compassion and with care.

“These days everybody is expecting me to run into court and get compensation, but my compensation is seeing the changes that have been made.

“I wanted to make the awful situation into something positive.”

Mrs Witney said drugs companies who benefit from the trials should foot the bill for these improvements, not the NHS.

She added: “If these improvements had been in place you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation and Andy’s death would have been with dignity and care.

“I’m not a do-gooder, I was just made very angry by a system I think is inhuman, but I hope what I’ve been able to do is make a positive difference.”

Prof Mark Middleton, Clinical Director of Oncology at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, said: “We had a good meeting with Mrs Witney which gave us an opportunity to apologise to her personally for the times that the care offered to her husband fell far short of what we would have wished.

“We also had a very constructive discussion about how we could learn from mistakes made in this case so that future trial patients were given the best possible care addressing these four points.

“We are about to write to her to confirm the points raised during our meeting.

“We will also send her the first draft of a new leaflet for patients on cancer clinical trials that we are hoping to produce as a result of our discussion with her.”