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.
The NICE clinical guideline on fertility covers: * the best forms of treatment for people who have problems getting pregnant * ways of treating people who have a known condition or reason for their fertility problems * ways of treating people when no reason for their fertility problems can be found
he NHSLA is a Special Health Authority (part of the NHS), responsible for handling negligence claims made against NHS bodies in England. In addition to dealing with claims when they arise, we have an active risk management programme to help raise standards of care in the NHS and hence reduce the number of incidents leading to claims. We also monitor human rights case-law on behalf of the NHS through our Human Rights Act Information Service. Since April 2005 we have been responsible for handling family health services appeals and in August 2005 we acquired the further function of co-ordinating equal pay claims on behalf of the NHS.
A cancer patient who was supposed to receive regular check ups says he was devastated when he was finally seen and told the disease had spread. Retired teacher Henry Clark from Narberth, Pembrokeshire, needed three-monthly check ups at West Wales General Hospital, Carmarthen. But "serious failures" meant he was not seen for more than a year. Hywel Dda Health Board has been criticised for what happened and has apologised.
NHS Blood and Transplant associate medical director Professor James Neuberger said transfer of malignancy was a very rare occurance but more organs were likely to carry diseases as donors get older. He admitted the scale of the problem was not known. A research fellow has now been appointed to find out how often infected organs are passed on to patients. Professor Neuberger said his first role was to try and get all the data together from transplant centres and then to work out strategies with clinicians to reduce risk.
The medicines watchdog, NICE, is to lose its power to turn down new medicines for use on the NHS. It will give advice on which drugs are effective, but will not decide whether patients should be given treatments their doctor recommends, the Department of Health has confirmed. Instead, groups of GPs will decide whether a drug should be funded or not. Ministers hope to make new drugs affordable to the NHS by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies on price. The plans, called value-based pricing, are set to come into effect in 2014. They are subject to consultation.
National efforts to improve care at the end of life should be speeded up to maintain the progress made in some parts of England, it has been claimed. The health policy think tank the King’s Fund has warned against a loss of momentum on England’s end of life care programme in a new report published this week and has questioned the government’s intention to leave a review of this area until 2013. Around 500 000 people die each year in England. More than half (55%) of deaths occur in hospital and only 20% at home. The government has said that several surveys have shown that most people’s preference is to die at home.
Checklists that spell out exactly how to care for patients with common conditions have dramatically reduced hospital deaths, say doctors. The British Medical Journal reported a 15% fall in the number of people who had died at one north London hospital trust using so-called care bundles. These are checklists covering dozens of conditions including strokes, heart failure and MRSA infections. The researchers said death rates could be "halved" using the system.
Doctors leaders have called for a halt in the development of a medical records database for patients in England. The British Medical Association says the computer-based Summary Care Records are being set up at "break-neck speed", sometimes without patients' knowledge. Ministers have expressed surprise at fears of fast change after previous criticism that it was moving slowly. The NHS IT upgrade will link more than 30,000 GPs to nearly 300 hospitals through an online appointments system. It will also feature a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients, e-prescriptions and faster computer network links.
Aims: This Handbook represents initial good practice guidance and resources to help PCTs to review current decision-making processes about the funding of medicines with co-operation from Provider Trusts and other stakeholders. Intended audience: Healthcare professionals. Publication history information: Published February 2009. Access: Available to the general public.
NICE has introduced new criteria for appraising end of life treatments. James Raftery looks at how they might affect availability by applying them to previously refused drugs
The government's kneejerk reaction to allow patients to top-up NHS care with treatment paid for privately is another nail in the coffin of the universal healthcare. We believe sanctioning top-ups is too simple an answer to a very thorny, complex and emotional issue, and doing so risks some serious unintended consequences. There is a danger that this might appease middle England but disregard the real health challenges facing us.