CANCER patients who cashed in their pensions or life-savings for treatment to stay alive have won back their medical costs.

Barbara Moss of Aconbury Close, Newtown, Worcester, was awarded £13,658 of her £21,000 medical bill from Worcestershire Primary Care Trust today.

Clifford Shore of Fernhill Heath, near Worcester, also received £10,000 of his £16,000 costs in compensation.

Mother-of-two Mrs Moss, 53, was delighted when she received a hand-delivered letter telling her the PCT had agreed to pay back the money for care she would normally have received free on the NHS.

Mrs Moss, diagnosed with bowel cancer in November 2006, lost the right to free care because she paid privately for eight courses of cancer drug Avastin which is unavailable on the NHS.

Because she funded the drugs herself she was also made to pay the cost of standard NHS care which included the time of the nurses and consultants who treated her.

Mrs Moss, speaking about the decision, said: “I’m delighted and ecstatic. I’m going to write back to them to say i’m accepting the offer. I never imagined this would happen.

"I just didn’t expect to get the money.”

She said the first thing she planned to do was pay back her 87-year-old mother Edna Hart who gave her a significant contribution towards her treatment.

The PCT will not refund the costs of the private course of Avastin for either Mrs Moss or Mr Shore because the drug is not approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Mrs Moss is now in remission after the cancer returned to her lymph nodes, chest and neck in May.

Grandfather Mr Shore, aged 68, paid for six cycles of the drug Avastin and also for his own care after he was diagnosed with bowel cancer in June this year.

He added: “I’m just relieved it’s all over. This was the inevitable end to it.

"It was a matter of getting bureaucracy to move at a pace that was great enough and receiving retrospective payment which I don’t believe the Government has been clear on.”

The PCT decision follows a change in Government direction earlier this month in which Health Secretary Alan Johnson called the existing system “cruel”.

Ministers accepted proposals to allow patients to pay for private treatment without losing their right to free NHS care.

Paul Bates, Chief Executive of Worcestershire PCT, said: “We have received representations from two patients in relation to the funding of NHS care they received while receiving Avastin.

“We have examined these individual cases and our position on the funding of Avastin has not changed.

“In relation to the funding of the NHS treatment, we have examined our stance on these two individual cases and concluded that both will receive compensatory payments.”

Each patient who wishes to claim back their medical costs will be assessed individually by the PCT before the cash is refunded.