It was reported today that David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, has pledged that cancer patients will be given access to life saving drugs, which they are currently denied on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) decides which drugs are available at the reduced rate (“on the NHS”), and then bureaucrats decide which ones are available in each region. This has lead to, what some call, a “postcode lottery” – as different drugs and services apply to different areas of the country.
In February, the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer reported that:
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence ruled the drug Everolimus (Afinitor) too expensive to fund despite the fact that it’s a proven life prolonging drug for kidney cancer patients. This is especially pertinent to kidney cancer patients as it’s a type of cancer that is very difficult to treat. It cannot be treated with chemotherapy or radiation.
Carole Malone of the News of the World went on to describe it as:
Funny then that Health Secretary Andy Burnham is about to announce that the NHS pot HAS got enough money to pay for couples to have marriage guidance counselling as part of a £270million package to tackle depression.
DEPRESSION? Am I understanding this right?
So, people experiencing a bit of argy-bargy in their marriage or those feeling fed up with their lot and who might be thinking “what’s the point of going on” are to be given priority over people with cancer who DESPERATELY want to go on, who are fighting with every last fibre of their being to “go on”.
According to the Daily Mail, 20,000 people have died as a result of not being given cancer drugs (which, as they point out, are available in other European countries).
Are the Conservative Party playing into the hands of the right wing media, by any chance?
In a piece published on the Daily Telegraph website today, it is said to cost £22,000 for a course of one treatment for bevaxizumab for cancer of the kidney and bowel; £19,000 per course of treatment for advanced breast cancer.
The article goes on to suggest that the party leader has not revealed where he will find the money to pay for this policy change, other than:
The Tories say the drugs will be paid for by their plans to raise the threshold for National Insurance, which will save the NHS £200 million a year in employee costs.
New Labour has shortened waiting times for everyone; including cancer patients. To see the data collected by NHS data-collecting people, see this.
The real question for politicians is how much the cost of life is? It is a repugnant analogy to make – the ‘cost’ of a human in capitalist terms (aka money), but that is what it has got to. I believe in the sanctity of life, and don’t think it is up to one person, one body or a political party to define how much we are worth, or how much money is ‘cost effective’ to spend on one person.
Labour have made a start, and this announcement of David Cameron will be a blow to them. They must come up with something ‘better”. But with NICE not paying out already – can Labour pull this one off?
