Cancer patient leads call for faster access to drugs (From Worcester News)

Cancer patient leads call for faster access to drugs

7:40pm Saturday 3rd January 2009

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A MOTHER forced to pay for her own cancer care is to write to the Health Secretary as she leads calls for faster access to life-saving drugs for terminally ill patients.

Barbara Moss, who has terminal cancer, recently welcomed a government decision to allow patients to pay for private cancer-busting drugs without losing their right to free NHS care in the wake of a review by national cancer director Professor Mike Richards.

Following the review, Health Secretary Alan Johnson said he would also speed up the process of approving new drugs for use on the NHS and give the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) greater flexibility in approving more expensive drugs for terminally ill patients.

But Mrs Moss, aged 54, of Aconbury Close, off Newtown Road, Worcester, said these other recommendations of the Richards Review had not yet been enforced.

She said: “I really want to write to ask Alan Johnson when some of this will come into practice.”

Mrs Moss received £13,658 of her £21,000 medical bill back from Worcestershire Primary Care Trust – the cost of the care she would have received free on the NHS had she not paid for the private ‘top-up’ drug Avastin.

“People who need these drugs can’t wait,” she said. “It’s about life and death. It has been for me. I’m still here because I had these drugs.

“I want to see the Mike Richards review recommendations in place because they’re not. You can now buy your drugs privately without it affecting your NHS care but all the other recommendations are not yet in place.

“I am talking to a woman who has been delayed from using Avastin for months and months.”

Mrs Moss said she did not blame Worcestershire Primary Care Trust, which she said was awaiting more guidelines from the Government on providing drugs in the wake of the review.

She has received a detailed letter from Paul Bates, the PCT chief executive, explaining the situation.

Mrs Moss was diagnosed with bowel cancer in November 2006 and given months to live but says the drug Avastin extended her life by shrinking a tumour until it became operable.

The cancer returned in May, this time affecting her lymph nodes, chest and neck.

A Department of Health Spokesman said: “This issue was causing distress to patients and their relatives and none of us wanted that uncertainty and inconsistency to continue.

“Patients and the public can now be confident that there will be greater clarity, greater fairness and, most importantly, greater access to a wider range of drugs.”

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