Businessman who spent £70,000 on cancer drug loses his fight for life

Oct 23 2007

A TERMINALLY-ILL Merseyside businessman who spent £70,000 of his own money to aid his fight against cancer has lost his fight for life.

Keith Ditchfield, 53, travelled Europe looking for treatment for his aggressive renal cancer after the NHS in Lancashire, where he was living, refused to pay for Nexavar, a treatment which helped prolong his life.

He spent £3,000 a month on the drug before East Lancashire Primary Care Trust finally agreed to meet the cost earlier this year.

Despite the drug improving his quality of life, the cancer finally got the better of Keith, who died last week.

His wife Helen said: “He was always fighting right until the end. He refused to give up and was brave and dignified.”

Mr Ditchfield first went private when he was told it would take at least a month to remove the tumour which started the cancer. He then developed a neck tumour and sought treatment in Germany after the NHS said it did not provide the specialist service required.

He also paid to receive Nexavar, from a German clinic, and it was only in February the NHS agreed to pay for it.

Speaking earlier this year, Mr Ditchfield who lived in Stonyhurst, Lancashire, and had family still living in Fazakerley and Aughton, near Ormskirk, said: “I spent my life savings to save my life.

“It’s the natural thing to do, because it’s no good in the bank after you are dead. But I couldn’t have continued to pay for it myself and I felt let down when I couldn’t get it through the NHS.

“I felt cheated.

“I think it’s terrible that you have to pay to save your own life after you have paid National Insurance your whole life.

“When doctors told me there was nothing they could do for me, I didn’t believe them. I knew there were treatments out there.

“The fact the NHS changed its mind means, I hope, that it will be available for other people with the same condition. ”Not everybody is able to pay for it themselves as I have been.”

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