Ashya's Parents Wanted Proton Beam Treatment

The parents of Ashya King have said they removed him from a Southampton hospital because they were unable to get a specialist treatment on the NHS.

In a YouTube video, Brett King said they were hoping to get to the Czech Republic to seek specialist medical care for their five-year-old son.

They were trying to get access to proton beam radiotherapy, which is currently only available to treat eye conditions on the NHS in the UK.

The treatment is already being used by European countries and in the US for a range of cancers in adults and children.

Ashya's parents were arrested on Saturday near Marbella, Spain

It differs from X-ray methods by focusing proton beams more precisely at cancer cells, with doses aimed directly at the tumour.

It spares the healthy tissue and organs behind it.

Speaking in the video, Mr King said: "Proton beam is so much better for children with brain cancer.

"It zones in on the area, whereby normal radiation passes through his head and comes out the other side and destroys everything in his head.

His family want him to receive proton beam treatment in the Czech Republic

"We pleaded with them (in Southampton) for proton beam treatment. They looked at me straight in the face and said with his cancer - which is called medulloblastoma - it would have no benefit whatsoever.

"I went straight back to my room and looked it up and the American sites and French sites and Switzerland sites where they have proton beam said the opposite, it would be very beneficial for him."

Ros Barnes, whose son Alex went to the US after he was unable to get beam therapy in the UK for his brain tumour, said she would do the same thing as Ashya's family.

She told Sky News: "We were told the same thing, that Alex's tumour wasn't suitable for proton therapy by the NHS here in this country.

Ashya is now in a children's hospital

"The alternative here was radiotherapy, and he was only four years old at the time it would have caused extreme brain damage and probably wouldn't have worked either. So yes, I would have done the same as this family.

"They wanted us to have the operation here and for him to have radiotherapy, but he would have been blind, brain damaged and in a wheelchair, if he survived, and his prognosis was terrible.

"It was so difficult to go against the doctors here because they were all saying the same thing, 'oh you know they're only after your money, it hasn't been tried and tested'."

Professor Justin Stebbing, consultant oncologist at Imperial College in London, told Sky News: "The conventional wisdom is that these heavier particles are more precise, you can get more energy into a very specific area.

"The problem is that we don't yet have the trials to support that, so in America at the moment where there are many more proton beam machines than in the UK and in Europe they are now performing those trials to see if protons actually prolong survival."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Decisions on treatment for individual patients are made by doctors who are best placed to know what their patient needs.

"We are investing £250m in new proton beam therapy facilities, in Manchester and in London, and more people are being funded to go overseas until facilities are available in the UK."

A spokesperson for NHS England added the NHS supported 99 children to travel abroad last year for proton beam therapy.

They said: "We all want what is best for Ashya, and it is for the cancer doctors and oncologists involved to advise on what is the best treatment for each child."

The only current proton beam facility is in Clatterbridge Centre for Cancer NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool.

Ashya's parents were held in custody after the family's car was pulled over by police in Malaga at 9pm UK time on Saturday.

The little boy, who underwent "extensive surgery" during an operation on his brain tumour seven days ago, was taken to a hospital.

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