Echo challenges Nice: ‘Show the dying more compassion’ (From The Northern Echo)

Echo challenges Nice: ‘Show the dying more compassion’

8:32am Thursday 17th September 2009 in

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THE Northern Echo has challenged the national drugs watchdog to show more compassion to dying cancer patients.

Yesterday The Echo’s Health Editor, Barry Nelson, got the chance to ask the bosses of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) why many cancer patients struggled to get the latest drugs on the NHS.

During the meeting Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of Nice, said one of the problems it faced was “greedy” pharmaceutical companies which “charge too much for new drugs”.

But Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice, said the watchdog had listened to public opinion and was now giving more weight to funding drugs which extended life.

In the past two years, The Echo has highlighted the plight of dying cancer patients who have had to fight to get life-extending drugs because they were not approved by Nice.

The campaign – End NHS Injustice – won a number of notable victories, after NHS primary care trusts performed U-turns and agreed to fund treatment.

Nice, which vets new drugs for NHS use, has been criticised for refusing to approve new cancer drugs with a proven track record because of their cost.

Nelson asked Mr Dillon, chief executive of Nice, why the watchdog did not allow drugs, which are often widely available in Western Europe, to be made available on the NHS.

Mr Dillon said that at the beginning of the year Nice asked its advisory bodies, which give advice on new drugs, to “allocate special weight where they were confident a new treatment can extend life by three months”.

Since January, Nice had approved several new treatments which might not have been approved last year, he added.

Mary Lee, 56, from Wideopen, North Tyneside, asked Nice why her husband, Bryan, 57, was unable to get the new cancer drug Avastin on the NHS to treat his advanced bowel cancer, even though their consultant wanted to prescribe it.

Guy Hedley, 47, from Blyth, Northumberland, who has spent £11,000 on Avastin to treat his bowel cancer, asked what the watchdog was doing to improve access.

And John Brewis, from Seaton Sluice, Northumberland, whose wife, Mary, 53, recently won a battle to be given the new drug Erbitux on the NHS, criticised the fact that patients who failed to persuade their local primary care trust to fund a new drug had no option but legal action.

Mr Dillon said Nice took its decisions on the best available evidence.

He said each primary care trust (PCT) had an exceptional circumstances panel which considered applications to fund new drugs not approved by Nice.

Mr Dillon said the idea that patients might be able to appeal against PCT decisions to an independent body was something the Department of Health might consider.