Tories in pledge to end drugs ‘lottery’

Oct 15 2007 by David Higgerson, Liverpool Daily Post

70 people denied drugs in Merseyside

THE Conservatives last night vowed to end the postcode lottery which has led to more than 70 people in Merseyside and Cheshire being denied drugs which could have greatly enhanced or even saved their lives.

Cheshire MP Stephen O’Brien, the shadow minister for health, pledged early action to ensure that people who were recommended for treatments by their consultants or GPs, got it.

He said a Daily Post investigation last week, which revealed more than 70 cases where Primary Care Trusts had refused to sanction treatments for a variety of illnesses including cancers, proved that the current system was not working.

Currently, PCTs are not compelled to agree to drug treatments which, although licensed in the UK, have not been approved by the National Institute for Clinical and Health Excellence (NICE). In the meantime, PCTs decide for themselves whether to prescribe a drug, and the result is that a treatment may be approved in one part of the country but denied in another.

Eddisbury MP Mr O’Brien said: “I share the concerns of people from across the region about the postcode lottery.

“We will take early action to tackle these injustices and inconsistency in the way drugs are prescribed by health trusts.

“Conservatives will streamline NICE by putting it on a statutory basis. We will also allow NICE to begin the assessment of drugs as licensing begins, so in the majority of cases by the time the drug has a licence it will also have a NICE appraisal.”

The Department for Health has continued to support NICE, saying it sometimes “has to make tough decisions.”

Among those backing reform of the NICE system is 70-year-old Frank Buckle, who managed to get Sutent, a drug yet to approved by NICE, to tackle kidney cancer via a trial at Christies Hospital in Manchester.

The Daily Post revealed last week how Sutent was among the drugs Merseyside PCTs had refused to prescribe.

Mr Buckle, of Southport, said: “It is totally wrong that I can be living proof that a drug such as Sutent works, but bureaucrats can still be allowed to refuse it.”

davidhiggerson@dailypost.co.uk