Cancer experts attack Nice 'drug rationing'
Cancer experts warn against NHS 'drug rationing'
Sunday, 24, Aug 2008 12:00
NHS 'drug rationing' has been criticised by 25 of the country's leading cancer experts.
Professors in cancer medicine from across the country wrote to the paper following a decision by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) on kidney cancer patients. In draft guidelines issued earlier this month, Nice stated that certain cancer drugs were not value for money for patients.
Writing to the newspaper, the 25 experts called the decision a "tragedy", adding that developments in treatment could not be used to treat those with advanced kidney cancer.
They also called for a "radical change" in the criteria for deciding on the rationing of cancer drugs.
The experts wrote: "Once again Nice has shown how poorly it assesses new cancer treatments. Its economic formulae are simply not suitable for addressing cost effectiveness in this area of medicine. Mean survivals obscure the fact that some patients will obtain prolonged benefit from these drugs.
"It is essential that Nice gets its sums right. We have already seen distraught patients remortgaging their houses, giving up pensions and selling cars simply to buy drugs that are freely available to those using health services in countries of comparable wealth."
The experts claimed that the UK spent similar amounts to European countries on health care in general but less than two thirds of the European average for cancer drugs.
They stated: "It just can't be that everybody else around the world is wrong about access to innovative cancer care and the NHS right in rationing it so severely."
Nice chief executive Andrew Dillon and Nice chairman Sir Michael Rawlins told the Sunday Times the NHS did not have the funds needed to subsidise treatment for all diseases.
They said: "There is a finite pot of money for the NHS, which is determined annually by parliament.
"If one group of patients is provided with cost-ineffective care, other groups - lacking powerful lobbyists - will be denied cost-effective care for miserable conditions like schizophrenia, Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis."