1,300 not given vital treatment (From The Northern Echo)

1,300 not given vital treatment

8:36am Monday 11th August 2008 in End NHS Injustice By David Roberts, Chief Reporter (Darlington)

A SURVEY has revealed more than 1,300 cancer patients nationwide are being denied vital drugs because of a “postcode lottery” over who gets access to them.

The Rarer Cancers Forum has found that in some areas of the country 100 per cent of patients were granted access to the medicine, whereas in others not a single person received the treatment.

The information has been obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from 62 of England’s 152 primary care trusts (PCTs).

In Darlington, five out of 12 requests were rejected and in North Yorkshire, 51 out of 147 patients were denied the treatment. The Rarer Cancers Forum has used the results to show that 1,314 people nationwide may have been denied treatment.

The charity’s chief executive, Penny Wilson-Webb, said: “The NHS should be available to all who need it, yet 1,300 cancer patients were denied the treatment that could have made all the difference to them. This audit shows the exceptional cases process is in chaos and patients are suffering.”

She said thousands of cancer patients had been forced to plead for their lives since October 2006, the time covered by the survey.

PCTs are not forced to fund treatments, such as the kidney cancer drug Sutent, which have not yet been appraised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or which are not being appraised. Doctors and patients must appeal for the drugs, saying the patients represent an exceptional case.

The survey backs up a campaign by The Northern Echo to End NHS Injustice, which has highlighted the cases of a number of cancer sufferers in the region in an effort to fight for life-prolonging drugs to be made available to them.