Is the British national health care system what Americans think it is? Postcode lotteries to get needed medications, rationing: "Cancer victims 'forced into debt' to pay for medicines freely available elsewhere in Europe"
Categories: International, Science, Conflict, Health, Politics, Economics, news
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 9:40 AM on 25th August 2008
Cancer victims 'forced into debt' to pay for medicines freely available elsewhere in Europe
'Forced into debt': Cancer doctors warned that around 3,600 patients would die more quickly because of the drug ruling by Nice
The NHS drugs rationing body is forcing cancer patients to remortgage their homes to pay for medicines freely available elsewhere in Europe, senior doctors warned yesterday.
More than 20 leading cancer consultants said they were 'dismayed' at guidance issued by Nice - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - to refuse four kidney cancer drugs on the NHS.
Accusing Nice of rationing too severely, they called for a radical change in the way the NHS makes decisions.
Among the 26 signatories is Professor Karol Sikora, one of Britain's leading cancer experts and former chief of the World Health Organisation Cancer Programme.
The outcry follows draft guidelines from Nice this month on the drugs sunitinib, bevacizumab, sorafenib and temsirolimus.
The body concluded that the therapies - which can extend a patient's life by months - were not good value.
Cancer doctors warned that around 3,600 patients would die more quickly.
Now, in a letter to the Sunday Times, some of the UK's most eminent doctors have added to the criticism.
'Once again Nice has shown how poorly it assesses new cancer treatments,' they said.
'It is essential that Nice gets its sums right. We have already seen distraught patients remortgaging their houses, giving up pensions and selling cars to buy drugs that are freely available to those using health services in countries of comparable wealth.'
The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain's two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie Hospital in Manchester, said it was not right that the NHS cannot find the money for the drugs.
'We now spend similar amounts to Europe on health generally and cancer care in particular-but less than two-thirds of the European-average on cancer drugs,' they said.
'It just can't be that everybody else around the world is wrong about access to innovative cancer care and the NHS right in rationing it so severely.'
They concluded: 'The time has come for a radical change in how the NHS makes rationing decisions for cancer.' The signatories include Professor Adrian Harris of Oxford University, Professor David Cunningham of the Royal Marsden and Professor Tim Illidge of Christie Hospital, Manchester.
Nice was set up in 1999 to end the postcode lottery of NHS treatment, but is increasingly under fire for its rulings.
Critics say it fails to take into account the fact that the cost of drugs falls if they become widely available, of economies of scale. Its rationing policies also deter drug companies from investing in expensive new drugs.
Nice chief executive Andrew Dillon said the NHS did not have unlimited funds. He said: 'If one group of patients is provided with cost-ineffective care, other groups --lacking powerful lobbyists - will be denied cost-effective care for miserable conditions like Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis.'
Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris said the consultants were aiming at the wrong target.
The former hospital doctor said: ' Attacking Nice is simply shooting the messenger and letting politicians off the hook.
'The Government must let Nice get its teeth into vetoing the millions of pounds the NHS spends on wasteful political initiatives - like over-paying private firms to cream off routine cases - and on totally ineffective treatments like homeopathy.
'That could save the money needed for effective but expensive cancer drugs.'
(Some comments that went with the article)
Here's what readers have had to say so far.
If we were not wasting several billion £s on the 2012 London Olympics, and in interfering in campaigns which increase the security risk here in the UK, there would be plenty of cash available to provide expensive drugs to cancer and dementia sufferers.
- Peter Coates, Hove, UK, 25/8/2008 12:31
We are the poor man of Europe again, yet we seem to pay "over the odds" in taxes etc!
- C Johnson, stockport, 25/8/2008 12:19
There are many miracle cures for cancer that your doctor either does not know or will not tell you about. You have to your own research into natural cancer treatments. While you are doing your research start changing your diet to a 100percent raw food diet.
- Michael Haymar, Oxford UK, 25/8/2008 12:17
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Comment on health from another article:
As someone who has only lived in the UK for the past 10 years, I'm afraid the fact that Jade's condition went undiagnosed for three years doesn't surprise me.at all. Disturbingly, I have found the standard of general practice in this country, to be very poor. In my own experience GPs are lethargic, uninterested, inefficient and lack any kind of patient focus. Keen to get patients in and out as quickly as possible, they miss things and more worryingly, seem to be not to have been trained in the basics of general medicine, i.e. diagnosis of shingles as insect bites, meant an unnecessary delay in appropriate treatment. Fortunately, this isn't a life threatening conditioning, but if this happens at such a fundamental level, what disservice is being done to those where it does make a life difference, such as in Jade's case?
- Charlie, Leicester, 24/8/2008 17:11
Article: HERE