OUR front page headline on Tuesday posed the question: "Why are women still denied cancer drug?"

It followed revelations of continuing delays over providing breast cancer victims with the lifesaving drug Herceptin.

Barbara Clark, from Somerset, had brought the issue to a head by winning a legal battle with her local health authority to be prescribed the drug.

Yesterday, the Government announced that all women in the early stages of breast cancer are to be tested to see if they could benefit from Herceptin.

It is tremendous news and a demonstration of the potency of patient power. But the sadness is that it has taken the desperate actions of a sick mother, who was prepared to take her fight for life to the European Court of Human Rights, to force the issue.

And even though Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has ordered the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to fast track the wider use of Herceptin, the drug will not be officially licensed until next February at the earliest.

With every day that passes, women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer will be wondering if their chances of life would have been increased had the process been accelerated earlier.

What Mrs Hewitt has to do now is to follow up her directive on Herceptin by making sure that primary care trusts across the country have the funds so that those who need the drug do not have to face any further delays.