The NHS's spending watchdog acted unlawfully when it decided to restrict access to drugs that could help thousands of older women with the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, the high court ruled today. A judge ruled that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) wrongly failed to disclose the economic reasoning behind a decision in October to restrict the supply of strontium ranelate, a drug manufactured by Servier laboratories under the brand name Protelos.
A trainee teacher with primary refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma has launched a High Court action against her primary care trust, NHS Surrey, which has refused to pay for her treatment with an unlicensed drug. Philippa Bigham, aged 28, from Frimley, Surrey, has been given a prognosis of two years’ survival without a bone marrow transplantation. But her medical team at the Royal Free Hospital in London want her to have treatment with radiolabelled basiliximab, a monoclonal antibody conjugated with radioactive iodine and also known as CHT-25, before she has the transplantation. The primary care trust has refused to pay for the drug, which costs £3000 ({euro}3500; $4900) for a course of treatment. Basiliximab is licensed in the United Kingdom for use in renal transplant rejection but the radiolabelled version is not yet licensed.
Frances Swaine and Merry Varney are instructed by David Tracey, whose wife, Janet Tracey, sadly died in Addenbrooke’s Hospital on 7 March 2011. Following her admission to Addenbrooke’s, a ‘Do Not Attempt Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation Order’ (known as a DNACPR or DNR) was placed on Janet’s medical notes. Janet was unaware of the DNACPR and when she became aware of it several days later, she clearly stated it was against her wishes and that she wanted to be resuscitated. As a result the DNACPR was cancelled. Several days later however a further DNACPR was entered onto her records. We have issued a judicial review and human rights claim against the NHS Trust responsible for Addenbrooke’s and against the Secretary of State for Health seeking Declarations from the Court that the Trust’s policy on the use of DNACPR is unlawful, and for the Secretary of State for Health to issue national guidance for patients and their families to know their rights concerning the use of DNACPRs.