CANCER patients in Wales are the latest to be given NHS funding for a life-extending drug already available in North-East but not in North Yorkshire.

Today's decision by Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart to approve interim NHS funding of Sutent for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer brings the Principality into line with the North-East.

Two years ago the expert committee which advises North-East primary care trusts recommended that the £30,000 a year drug should be funded ahead of guidance from National Institute for Clinical Excellence, or Nice.

Nice is due to rule whether Sutent can be prescribed on the NHS in the next few weeks but the lack of guidance on the drug - which is widely used in Europe and the United States - means that patients in about one third of English PCTs are still unable to get it.

Drug maker Pfizer estimates that about two-thirds of English PCTs have agreed to fund Sutent ahead of Nice guidance, with the North-East leading the way.

Tonight Ray Devonport, from Chilton, near Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, whose wife, Kathleen, eventually won a seven month fight to get NHS funding for Sutent, said: "They used to say would have to move to Scotland to get some drugs on the NHS but now they have to move to Wales. It is crazy that some can get it and others cant yet this is the standard treatment elsewhere."

The Northern Echo also reported the case of Barbara Selby, 65, from Richmond, North Yorkshire, who made several unsuccessful appeals to North Yorkshire and York PCT to fund Sutent for her advanced kidney cancer.

Mrs Selby, a former nurse, died last September without ever receiving the drug.

The PCT turned down her requests on the grounds of clinical and cost-effectiveness.