Health
Sight-saving treatment for some – but miles away others lose out
THE UK's main charity for the
blind has praised North-East
health bosses for agreeing to
fund a new sight-saving drug
ahead of national guidance.
The decision means the
North-East is the first NHS region
to agree to fund the drug,
called Lucentis, which can
save the sight of patients with
a condition called wet age-related
macular degeneration.
But the Royal National Institute
for the Blind criticised
the "foot-dragging" stance of
other primary care trusts - including
North Yorkshire and
York Primary Care Trust -
which are waiting until the full
guidance from the National Institute
for Health and Clinical
Excellence, or Nice, is published
in June.
The decision means that patients
in County Durham,
Teesside, Wearside, Tyneside
and Northumberland, who
need Lucentis to save their
sight, will get the £21,000
course of injections they need
over two years, without delay.
However, just a few miles
south, patients in North Yorkshire
will have to wait until
they have lost most of the sight
in one eye before they can get
the drug on the NHS to treat
their other eye.
The two-tier situation has
been created by Nice's announcement
in early April that
it intends to recommend that
all PCTs in England and Wales
should agree to fund Lucentis
on the NHS.
While some PCTs, including
all the PCTs in the North-East,
have agreed to pay for the drug
now, some trusts are chosing to
wait until the full guidance is
published in the summer.
Chris Reed, who chairs the
North East Specialised Commissioning
Group, said: "Although
the definitive guidance
from Nice is still awaited, we
feel that there is now sufficient
information available for the
treatment to be available for
patients whichever eye is affected."
A spokesman for the RNIB
said: "PCTS should be funding
Lucentis now. Some are dragging
their feet and waiting
until formal guidance in June
but patients don't have that
luxury, they need to be treated
immediately."
A spokeswoman for North
Yorkshire and York PCT said it
was standing by criteria adopted
throughout Yorkshire and
Humber last July, which involved
giving treatment "to
the better seeing eye only,"
until changes in Nice guidelines.
It pointed out that it
plans to invest a further £2m in
Lucentis over the next year.
9:12am Thursday 1st May 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
