A family may be forced to move to London so their severely disabled daughter can get the treatment they claim she needs.

Seven-year-old Chloe Hambrook was born with cerebral palsy and has suffered a string of problems all her short life, including brain damage.

She sees a paediatrician once a year at Colchester General Hospital but her mum Laura says this isn't enough and has asked the Trust which runs the hospital to refer her to a neurological specialist in London.

However all the child experts within Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust agree Chloe does not need to see a brain specialist, and they will not refer her.

Now, after saving up to pay privately to see the specialist, they believe Chloe will get the treatment she needs if they move to London...

LAURA Hambrook, like all parents, wants the best for her daughter, Chloe.

Seven-year-old Chloe has cerebral palsy and brain damage. After experts at Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust said Chloe did not need to see a neurologist Mrs Hambrook and her husband Mark saved up the cash needed to pay privately a consultant in neurodevelopmental paediatrics in London.

He told the family Chloe had developed a curved spine - something that previously hadn't been picked up.

That will be treated in London and paid for by Essex Rivers but defiant mum Mrs Hambrook maintains she knows her child best, has seen a deterioration in Chloe mentally - and still feels she needs to see a neurologist.

Yesterday Mrs Hambrook launched a crusade to get for her child the treatment she says she deserves.

She said today: "I have written to the Trust chief executive who told me to write to their paediatrician, I did, and I haven't had a reply yet - two weeks later.

"I've written to the Prime Minister, to Frank Dobson (Health Secretary) and will march up to the door of number 10 Downing Street if that's what it takes.

"I am not asking for the world. I will pay for all our travel expenses and get myself and Chloe to and from appointments but we cannot afford to keep paying to see specialists privately.

"It is supposed to be a national health service, not a local health service where you get better treatment depending on where you live.

"I was told by people at the private centre that if I lived in London I would get this treatment on the NHS."

Mrs Hambrook, of Grantham Road, Great Horkesley, is now considering uprooting her family from Essex to London to join her husband who lives in the capital during the week because of work.

"It seems like the only thing to do to get the best for my daughter but it shouldn't have to happen," she said.

A Trust spokesman maintained today that all the consultants who had seen Chloe in Colchester did not believe she needed to see a paediatric neurologist.

He said that throughout her life Chloe had seen a number of different specialists in London, at the expense of the Trust, and that the private consultant the Hambrooks had seen earlier this month had in fact suggested the best treatment for the spine curvature was by the doctor in London the Trust has now referred Chloe to - there was no mention of her needing to see a neurologist.

"We are constantly reviewing the case," he added.

Chloe, who goes to Bishop William Ward school in Great Horkesley, was unable to walk or talk until Evening Gazette readers raised the money to send her to Florida for innovative swimming-with-dolphins treatment in 1995. which helped get her started.

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