Wigan Today (KC) 22-Aug-08
From Kidney Cancer Resource
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Cancer patients lose out in postcode lottery
Cancer patients across Wigan are being denied new drugs in a recently exposed county-wide postcode lottery. Health bosses responsible for approving new drugs for patients in Wigan have rejected around a third of the requests they have received for new kidney, bowel and blood cancer drugs in the last two years.
Altogether, half of the applications for new cancer drugs have been approved by the Ashton, Wigan and Leigh Primary Care Trust. The drugs in question have been licensed for use but not approved by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, meaning they are not widely available on the NHS,
They include Sutent, a kidney cancer drug that NICE has just ruled is too expensive for the NHS. Dr Mark Saunders, a bowel cancer specialist at the Christie Hospital in Manchester conducted the study.
He said: "Patients with cancer should not have to go through the trauma, stress and delay of appealing for access to treatment that ought to be available as a matter of course.
"They already have enough to deal with in terms of coping with the trauma of a terminal illness. You really cannot put a value on the extra time and quality of life these drugs can provide.
"If other European countries are able to provide them, then why can't we do the same?" Patients across other parts of Greater Manchester are missing out on new drugs depending on where they live.
In Manchester, six-out-of-seven people who applied for pioneering new drugs were turned down. But Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Tameside and Rochdale have not rejected any of the applications they have received in the last two years, research by a cancer expert shows.
Most of the requests are for the kidney cancer treatment Sutent. Wigan, Salford and Stockport primary care trusts all turned down at least a third of the applications for new kidney, bowel and blood cancer drugs.
Difficulty arises when new drugs, which are often expensive, are licensed for general use but are not approved for funding by the government.
A spokesman for AWLPCT said: "In lieu of NICE Guidance, the PCT would review decisions made by the Scottish Medicines Consortium. If not reviewed there, the PCT will look for guidelines developed by recognised national expert groups and accepted nationally.
"If there is no national guidance, then the PCT would consider the evidence provided with the application for funding. Applications are treated the same, irrespective of whether received from a patient or a consultant.
"Any application must, however, be supported by unbiased clinical evidence, detailing that patient's specific condition, the previous treatments/responses, adverse effects etc. It must also provide a very clear clinical view on the expected benefits of treatment for that patient.
"If the application is for exceptional circumstances, then the application must demonstrate why that patient is different from the usual population that might be treated and set out clinical rationale why that patient would respond more successfully to the treatment.
"Individual decisions are based upon clinical effectiveness and expected treatment outcomes. "This must be supported by published clinical evidence."
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