Health
NHS ‘postcode lottery’ forces ill man to move
A DESPERATELY-ILL cancer
patient is planning to move from
North Yorkshire to County
Durham to get a drug on the
NHS which could prolong his
life.
The 51-year-old pipeline engineer
- who has asked not to be
named but lives in Malton - said
he has had to consider moving to
his former address, near Bishop
Auckland, in an attempt to qualify
for treatment with a drug
called Tarceva.
It follows a decision by North
Yorkshire and York Primary
Care Trust to turn down his consultant's
application for funding
for the £20,000-a-year drug.
The North-East is the only region
in England where the NHS
will fund Tarceva. The drug is
available in Scotland and most of
Europe.
But the English drug watchdog,
the National Institute for
Clinical Excellence (Nice), recently
indicated it is likely to reject
the use of Tarceva on the
NHS. Nice said the drug was not
cost-effective. The drug has prolonged
the lives of some patients
with non-small cell lung cancer.
Without Tarceva, patients
with the condition can only expect
to live about six months
after diagnosis.
"My oncologist is writing a letter
to his equivalent in Durham
to try to get this drug for me," the
man said.
The engineer said he had paid
into the NHS for many years and
felt angry that he was being denied
access to a drug which appeared
to have a good track
record.
"I did offer to pay for the first
few months, but I was advised by
my consultant that I would end
up paying a lot more because I
would have to go private," the patient
added.
Mike Unger, chief executive of
the Roy Castle Lung Cancer
Foundation, which has appealed
against Nice's stance on Tarceva,
said: "This is a postcode lottery
of the worst kind."
Last week, The Northern Echo
highlighted the case of a 63-yearold
lung cancer patient, who
used to live in Darlington, who is
being denied Tarceva by her primary
care trust in Surrey.
A spokeswoman for County
Durham Primary Care Trust
said: "Individual requests for
treatment that are not approved
by Nice are considered by the
PCT's exceptional cases committee
and funding may be approved
in exceptional circumstances."
9:07am Thursday 8th May 2008
Print 
Email this 
CommentPosted by: Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe on 9:48am Thu 8 May 08
It makes you wonder how New Labour politicians can keep rolling out the same old quote "We have put increased funding into the NHS" when stories like this one are common place. It would appear the funding is being used to create bodies to stop the use of life saving treatment.
It makes you wonder how New Labour politicians can keep rolling out the same old quote "We have put increased funding into the NHS" when stories like this one are common place. It would appear the funding is being used to create bodies to stop the use of life saving treatment.
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!
