Cancer Care

LONDON (AFP) - Cancer sufferers’ access to innovative drugs which are funded outside of the NHS is subject to a “postcode lottery,” The Rare Cancers Forum claimed on Monday.

Discretion over who receives drugs that have not been assessd by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (N ICE ) falls with local NHS commissioners, who received 5,000 requests over a 20-month period, nearly a quarter of which were rejected.

However, the charity found a huge variation in the success of patients’ appeals depending on which NHS Trust they live in.

The government aknowledged patients’ concerns and claimed that a new NHS constitution would iron out any variations in the quality of treatment received.

“We have heard from patients that one of their major concerns is the perceived ‘postcode lottery’ in access to drugs,” a spokesman for the Department of Health said.

“The draft NHS Constitution will address this by making it explicit that patients have the right to NICE-approved drugs if clinically appropriate,” they added.

Source : news.yahoo.com

Nottingham rejected all appeals while Derby, East and North Hertfordshire all turned down over three-quarters of the requests that they received.

In contrast, Wakefield, Havering, Torbay, Kirklees, Shropshire and Warrington trusts granted every appeal.

Penny Wilson-Webb, chief executive of the charity, said: “The NHS should be available to all who need it yet thousands of cancer patients have been forced to plead for their lives.”