they have suffered recurrent miscarriages, which<\/a> they believe could be linked to working unprotected on cancer wards, while other staff have reported suffering hair loss, nausea and dizziness, and fatigue. <\/p>\nWithout adequate PPE, workers can be exposed to hazardous products by either breathing them in, through contact with contaminated surfaces or spills, or if a liquid is absorbed through the skin.<\/p>\n
Last September, the NHS West Midlands Cancer Alliance published guidance warning that \u201cinadequate control measures\u201d could cause miscarriage, birth defects, liver damage, abnormal cell formations, abdominal pain, nasal sores and vomiting, while several studies have linked exposure to these drugs to infertility issues within healthcare workers. <\/p>\n
In the United States, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert over the risks posed by the drugs to its healthcare workers \u2013 but UK guidelines allow NHS trusts to provide the \u201cbare minimum\u201d for workers. <\/p>\n
Now the UK\u2019s regulator, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), is being urged to act and review the evidence concerning the health risks to staff.<\/p>\n
Alison Simons, a cancer nurse of more than two decades, fears her miscarriages were linked to working without the necessary protections. <\/p>\n
![\"Alison](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Alison-Simmons.png\")
Alison Simons, a specialist nurse, worked in NHS cancer services for more than two decades, believes her miscarriages could have been caused by working without adequate protection for years (Channel 4)<\/p>\n
Beginning her career in the mid-90s, she said: \u201cWhen I was giving chemo, all we wore were plastic aprons and gloves to our wrists. I experienced three miscarriages, and at first, I didn\u2019t make any link between giving chemotherapy at all. In fact, it was my GP who said you give chemotherapy, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started talking to colleagues, they were also experiencing similar things, such as miscarriages and fertility issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Simons, who is now a senior lecturer in applied cancer practice and a doctoral student at Birmingham City University, warned that, despite knowing what safety measures should be implemented, many trusts are still not putting them in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s particularly frustrating because we know there are things out there to protect us, and they\u2019re not being used. It does beg the question, are we not worth it?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Samantha Toland, a nurse consultant in cancer care for 26 years and lead cancer therapy nurse at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, who teaches students alongside Ms Simmons, said: \u201cI, too, experienced a miscarriage in between my two children, but didn\u2019t think anything of it\u2026 It was more when I started teaching; we both concluded that this was bigger than we thought it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Toland said her current trust was very good on the matter, but in previous workplaces controls were lacking. <\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI\u2019ve had colleagues who have had multiple miscarriages, up to six or seven, and had to be off work for most of their pregnancy.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern is that nurses are not getting the level of protection they should have\u2026 there\u2019s that feeling when you know there are things that could help, and nobody seems to be putting those into place. That\u2019s when you feel a bit disheartened by it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Karen Campbell, a former president of the UK Oncology Nurse Society (UKONS), said the risks posed by such medicines have been known for decades, but the consequences are more visible now because of the growing number of people undergoing cancer treatment.<\/p>\n
![\"Samantha](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STILL-1.png\")
Samantha Toland, lead cancer nurse at Worcestershire Acute NHS Trust, said more needs to be done to protect staff (Channel 4)<\/p>\n
She published a study last year, which revealed that 97 per cent of the 747 nurses who answered said they were primarily given only plastic aprons when administering cancer drugs. Just 62 per cent were given the correct gloves labelled for use in chemotherapy, while 53 per cent were given general-purpose gloves. <\/p>\n
Prof Campbell, who has been a cancer nurse for 30 years, said this was an \u201cinadequate\u201d level of protection, and said the UK falls behind countries such as the US, where staff are routinely given full surgical gowns, masks and are double-gloved. Of those who answered the survey, 161 reported health impacts such as headaches, hair loss, fatigue, skin irritation, nausea, dizziness, and miscarriage.<\/p>\n
As well as PPE, trusts should be using \u201cclosed system transfer devices”, which are mechanically sealed and leak-proof containers for chemotherapy drugs to cut risk of exposure during both preparation and administration. However, only 44 per cent of staff said they consistently used these.<\/p>\n
Prof Campbell said that despite evidence of the risks, authorities have been reluctant to standardise practice. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s probably a very big can of worms to open up… My main fear is that the workforce is quite young, it’s women, and they don\u2019t have much of a voice. You [ministers] have to protect your workers, [or] ultimately you won’t have anybody working in the NHS\u2026 why would you let them suffer?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Labour MP Luke Akehurst, who <\/strong>received chemotherapy himself in 2009 and has raised the issue with ministers, said the government had a duty to protect workers. He said: \u201cThis is about the NHS staff who are there for when you are really acutely ill, these are the people who are saving your life through cancer treatment, and none of us who have been for life-threatening illness would ever want the staff who are helping us to have their health damaged.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201c[Ministers and the NHS] have a moral responsibility, the safety of workers, that\u2019s what we\u2019re about as a Labour government, but particularly people who are working on such an important task as saving people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Nursing is calling on the HSE and government to implement minimum standards for the control for hazardous medicines. The current regulations require employers to ensure that exposure is \u201cas low as reasonably practical\u201d but the RCN said the wording is subjective and has led to variations on how hospitals implement protections. It wants it to be changed to the \u201clowest possible level\u201d, which it said would require stronger controls from employers.<\/p>\n
Louise Church, health, safety and wellbeing senior national officer for the RCN, said: \u201cThe RCN recognises that these are vital treatments for patients, but what we want to see is that nurses and staff are properly protected when they are handling tools and patients and caring for patients using these substances.\u201d<\/p>\n
An NHS spokesperson said: \u201cThe safety of NHS staff is paramount, and NHS trusts have a duty in law to protect staff from being exposed to hazardous medicinal products \u2013 with clear regulations and guidance in place on the handling of these substances.\u201d<\/p>\n
The HSE and the Department for Work and Pensions, which oversees health and safety at work laws, and the Department of Health and Social Care have been approached for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-944069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116534034037221925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}