All patients in England suffering from a disease which causes blindness are to get access to a sight-saving drug. Lucentis treats age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of sight loss in the country.
The NHS drugs watchdog has loosened the terms of approval for expensive treatments that extend life in patients with a short life expectancy. Drugs that would normally be ruled out of use on the NHS because they did not represent a cost effective use of resources are now more likely to be made available.
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.
A LESBIAN couple have won the right to IVF on the NHS after a legal tussle, ahead of laws that will put same-sex patients on an equal footing with heterosexuals. The couple, who remain anonymous, had to go through a legal fight to push the NHS to fund IVF because, at the moment, individual trusts decide whether they wish to pay for treatment for lesbians. The couple were initially refused IVF by their primary care trust because they were of the same sex. One of the women had polycystic ovarian syndrome, which disrupts ovulation, and is one of the most common causes of infertility. From October, clinics will no longer be able to block lesbians by referring to a child’s “need for a father”. Instead, same-sex couples will need to demonstrate only that they can offer “supportive parenting”.
The government says it will ban all private transplants of organs from dead donors in the UK. The move comes after media reports of overseas patients paying to get onto the waiting list for organs donated by British people. An independent report said organs were scarce and no one should be able to pay for transplants, to ensure NHS patients did not miss out. Surgeons said it should reassure people organs went to those in most need.
More than 80% of NHS primary care trusts in England fail to offer the recommended three free cycles of IVF to infertile couples, an MP has claimed. The Department of Health says 30% of PCTs provide three cycles of the fertilisation treatment. But Tory MP Grant Shapps, who has contacted every PCT, says these figures are out of date. A "postcode lottery" operates, with rules on age, relationships and other children varying widely, he insists. In some cases women who would be deemed too old for treatment by one PCT would be seen as too young by another.
The government has announced a ban on patients paying for private transplant surgery using organs donated within the NHS. Ministers have accepted the recommendations of an independent report commissioned by the government after concerns that foreign patients were bypassing lengthy NHS waiting lists by paying up to £75 000 ({euro}90 000; $130 000) for a transplantation. Earlier this year it was revealed that the livers of 50 British NHS donors were transplanted into foreign patients over a two year period, with the bulk of the operations taking place in London at King’s College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
Patients with rarer forms of cancer may have been denied potentially life-saving drugs due to a postcode lottery, campaigners said today. A study by the Rarer Cancers Forum found patients faced a postcode lottery when requesting drugs that had not been licensed for their condition, with many people being refused treatment.
A distraught Newtownards father is today set to take his battle for a liver transplant for his severely ill son to the High Court. But while his legal team argue for a judicial review of a rule requiring alcoholics to be off drink for six months before being considered for a life-saving transplant, devoted dad Brian Anderson will travel to King’s Hospital in London to see his son Gareth.
Northern Ireland Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has said he cannot change organ transplant rules to allow Gareth Anderson to be added to the waiting list. Mr McGimpsey said guidelines state that he has to be alcohol free for six months before going on the organ list. “There are not enough livers to go around and the reason behind that guidance is that to be sure that precious gift isn't destroyed by alcohol immediately after, or soon after, the transplant occurs,” he said.
The 2009 Equality Bill will, if enacted, make age based discrimination in the provision of health care and social care illegal for the first time in the United Kingdom. In a speech in 2008, the then health secretary, Alan Johnson, said, "Old age is the new middle age. Health and social care services need to adapt to the changing needs of today’s older people . . . to promote health in old age and help older people to maintain independence and quality of life."
A man serving a life sentence for a double murder has won a High Court victory over his right to have cosmetic surgery on the NHS. Denis Harland Roberts, 59, currently in a Co Durham jail for killing an elderly couple in East Sussex in 1989, wanted treatment to remove a birthmark. An undisclosed policy operated by Justice Secretary Jack Straw had restricted non-urgent inmate treatment. The case may mean other inmates are considered for similar treatments. However, the Prison Service said it was still "entitled to refuse escorts to hospital on grounds of risk". On Wednesday, London's High Court declared the justice secretary acted unlawfully and "contrary to good administration" in failing to disclose his full policy on medical appointments.
The refusal to move a pre-operative transsexual prisoner from a men's jail to a women's prison is a violation of her human rights, says the High Court. Deputy Judge David Elvin QC quashed Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to keep the 27-year-old, who cannot be identified, in a male prison.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence proposes to reject a breast cancer drug despite its own rule changes on end-of-life treatments Wednesday 21 October 2009 18.11 BST A drug which can give women with advanced breast cancer extra weeks or months of life has been turned down by a government watchdog body for use in the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says it proposes to reject Tyverb (lapatinib) in spite of changes in the rules brought in specifically to allow people at the end of their lives to have the chance of new and often expensive treatments. Tyverb is the only drug licensed for women with advanced breast cancer whose tumours test positive for a protein called HER2 and for whom Herceptin, a Nice-approved drug, is no longer working. In much of the rest of Europe, Tyverb is then given, in combination with a standard chemotherapy drug called capecitabine.
Hospital patients in England will get the legal right to be seen privately if they face NHS delays. Hospitals have to start treating patients within 18 weeks of referral - or two weeks in the case of cancer. But ministers will now give patients a legal right to private care - or treatment at another NHS centre if so desired - if this does not happen. The Tories, who would scrap waiting time targets, said it was an "unaffordable and uncosted" pledge.
The Labour party is urging the Scottish parliament to take action to standardise IVF provision across Scotland, after Labour MSP Jackie Baillie discovered wide disparities in provision between the 11 Scottish NHS boards. Ms Baillie contacted all of the boards after having been approached by a constituent who was upset about the length of IVF waiting lists where they lived.
With a national shortage of organ donors, the dilemma faced by surgeons is whether a transplant with what are called "marginal" organs from donors who could be higher risk, such as the elderly or patients with a history of cancer or drug abuse, is better than leaving a patient on a waiting list where they could die before a suitable donor can be found. Figures disclosed to File on 4 reveal that in 1998 13% of donor organs were "marginal", 10 years later this percentage had doubled. Everyone in the transplant field who has talked to the programme agreed the quality of organs from deceased donors was declining, accepting this meant added risks connected to the hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys used for transplants. As one doctor put it, this is a calculated gamble. Arising out of this comes the issue of informed consent. Who should have the final say whether an organ from a dead donor should be used, the professional or the patient?
A powerful arthritis drug, judged too expensive for patients in England and Wales, has been approved in Scotland. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) provisionally ruled that Tocilizumab was too costly for NHS patients south of the border. However, the body's Scottish equivalent has recommended patients in Scotland be treated with the drug.