The Evening Star is fighting to keep head and neck cancer surgery where it belongs - at Ipswich Hospital.

The Evening Star is fighting to keep head and neck cancer surgery where it belongs - at Ipswich Hospital.

The Anglia Cancer Network (ACN) wants to move the life-saving surgery to Norwich, leaving patients with an arduous journey at one of the most stressful times of their lives.

The ACN says the move is needed to comply with national guidelines about the number of patients treated at hospitals.

So far more than 3,000 people have signed the Star's petition against the move.

And during the campaign the Star has highlighted:

- The public consultation into the move was a sham, with the East of England Strategic Health Authority telling health colleagues the only allowable option was to move the service to Norwich.

- The flaws in the data regarding the number of patients treated at Ipswich Hospital.

- Suffolk Primary Care Trust's attempts to suppress clinicians at Ipswich Hospital from speaking out about those figures.

- The lack of specialist registrars in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

- That patients living as close to Ipswich as Manningtree will be sent to Chelmsford for treatment, simply because of healthcare boundaries.

- That Ipswich Hospital itself believes the decision will have an impact on its ability to provide emergency care.

- That there is no published evidence to prove creating a specialist centre will improve outcomes for head and neck cancer patients.