Falkland's patient is Lynn's furthest referral
A FORMER employee at Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital has made a 16,000- mile return trip for a cancer checkup at the hospital.
In what could be the longest-distance referral in NHS history, nurse Janette Vincent flew from Stanley in the Falkland Islands for a mammogram at the hospital's Breast Care Unit.
Mrs Vincent (49) was given the all-clear after travelling via Ascension Island to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in a 16-hour journey to the hospital, where she worked as a nurse for a short time seven years ago.
Doctors decided to combine her planned trip to West Norfolk to see her parents, who live in West Winch, with Mrs Vincent's referral after she developed a problem at home in Stanley.
Mrs Vincent, who has lived in the Falklands for 22 years, praised the hospital and said the service she had received was "excellent."
Communications manager Mr Richard Humphries told the Lynn News: "It was a great surprise to get a call from so far away. So far as we know this is the furthest one of our patients has had to travel for an appointment and it certainly makes getting the bus from West Winch look a little tame!
"Mrs Vincent worked here briefly in a temporary job as a nurse in 2000. We have a good system to make sure we get paid for treating overseas patients and there was already an agreement in place to treat patients from the Falklands."
Mrs Vincent, who is a clinical development officer at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in Stanley, travelled home with her husband Steve on Sunday.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
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Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
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