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The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves.

One drug for kidney cancer, routinely available through public health systems in most European countries but not to British patients, can reduce the size of tumours in 31% of patients, compared with just 6% of those prescribed the standard NHS drug.

The growing row over “co-payments” has prompted the government to reconsider the ban. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, has promised a “fundamental rethink” of the policy.

Private drug helps cancer man left to die

Cancer patient sent home to die by the NHS sees health improve after cashing in pension and paying privately for drugs

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The shift comes as increasing numbers of cancer doctors defy the official Whitehall ban and allow patients to pay for drugs while still receiving NHS care.

Doctors at the Royal Marsden hospital in London and consultants at the NHS trust in Swansea are offering patients NHS care while they pay to receive drugs that will prolong their lives. Last week The Sunday Times revealed that about 16 consultants in Birmingham are ignoring the government guidance.

Research presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that kidney patients taking the new drug Sutent lived six months longer than those prescribed alpha interferon, the NHS treatment.

The failure of the NHS to make more effective drugs available to cancer patients has been condemned as “unethical” by leading doctors.

John Wagstaff, professor of oncology at Swansea University, said: “This has created a very difficult situation for us. Having seen the latest data, I believe it is now pretty unethical to give many patients alpha interferon [rather than Sutent]. We are often forced to prescribe interferon because we do not have access to Sutent [on the NHS], but I am always upfront with the patients. I tell them what I think the most effective treatment is.”

Eight times as many patients in Germany and France receive Sutent as in Britain, according to figures held by Pfizer, the manufacturer. Sutent, which costs about £2,200 a month compared with about £800 for the NHS drug, is one of a number of life-prolonging new drugs at the centre of the co-payments row.

In advanced kidney cancer, when the patient cannot be treated with any other drug, Nexavar, another medicine, can double the period when the disease is held under control.

A trial of Nexavar, comparing the effect of the drug with a placebo, showed it to be so effective that the trial had to be halted early as it was considered unethical not to give it to all the patients in the test. Tumours were prevented from growing for an average of 5.5 months in patients taking Nexavar, against 2.8 months in those taking the placebo. Despite the findings, Nexavar is not routinely funded by the NHS.

Similarly, bowel cancer patients are up to four times as likely to see their tumour shrink if they pay for Erbitux than if they take irinotecan, the NHS-approved drug, alone. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2004 showed that 23% of patients experienced a reduction in the size of their tumour when they took Erbitux and irinotecan.

Other studies showed that just 5% of patients have the same benefit from taking irinotecan alone. Those taking irinotecan alone had their bowel cancer under control for 4.2 months, but this rose to 8.6 months when Erbitux was added.

Erbitux, costing about £3,000 a month, is funded for bowel cancer in most European countries. Patients in France are 13 times, in Spain 10 times and in Germany nine times more likely to get the drug than Britons.

The drug Avastin offers similar benefits. Research presented earlier this year showed that patients who receive Avastin and routine chemotherapy before surgery are twice as likely to be alive two years later as those who receive only the chemotherapy available on the NHS.

Fireman is denied treatment

A former fireman who developed liver cancer after 25 years’ service has been told that if he pays for the only drug that can treat his disease his NHS care will be withdrawn.

Barry Humphrey, 59, from North Walsham, Norfolk, was told by NHS doctors that the drug Nexavar was the only available treatment for his advanced liver cancer.

However, consultants at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge said the drug was not routinely funded by the NHS and told him that if he paid for it he would be billed for the rest of his NHS care.

Humphrey believes his cancer is linked to his time as a fireman. His cancer was caused by cirrhosis of the liver after he contracted hepatitis C. He believes he caught the virus from a casualty while on duty.

Research presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology found patients with advanced liver cancer survive for an average of 11 months if they take Nexavar, while those denied the drug live for just eight months.

Humphrey’s wife Hazel, 58, who also worked in the fire service, said: “Doctors said this would ‘not be viable’ because we would be deemed as opting out of the NHS and would need to pay for everything.

“I think it is absolutely disgraceful. When people are terminally ill, they want to spend as much time as they possibly can extending their life expectancy.” She said the couple know the drug will not provide a cure but should have the right to spend their savings to prolong her husband’s life.

They plan to sell a flat that they have been renting out to raise the cash for the drug, which costs about £3,000 a month. Humphrey, who has four children, six grandchildren and helps to care for his elderly mother, said: “I think this is morally wrong and indefensible.”

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Addenbrooke’s, said: “We are complying with the national guidance which says we cannot allow co-funding.”

A family’s battle

A woman with bowel cancer is fighting for the right to pay for a drug that could extend her life long enough for her to spend Christmas with her grandchildren.

Sheila Norrington, 59, a former NHS medical secretary from Maidstone, Kent, has been told by doctors that if she buys the drug Erbitux, which the health service will not pay for, she will lose her state-funded cancer care. Erbitux is the only drug capable of treating her advanced bowel cancer.

Norrington’s husband, Goff, 61, a former sales manager, said: “We have been told that if we pay for it ourselves we will be thrown off the NHS completely and we will need to pay for everything privately. We are devastated. This is not going to cure my wife, but if it keeps her alive a little bit longer, then we would pay for it.”

The couple say that although they could pay for a few cycles of the drug, which costs about £3,000 a month, they could not pay for all Norrington’s care, including scans, blood tests and consultations.

Goff Norrington added: “We have two young granddaughters and this could make the difference between sitting round the table with them at Christmas or not. We think it is deplorable that patients can get this drug almost anywhere in Europe but we cannot get it in the UK.”

A spokesman for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: “We are governed by Department of Health policy on this issue.”

The public’s view

A poll for The Sunday Times shows strong support for allowing co-payment in the National Health Service, with 89% saying that people who buy additional cancer drugs should continue to get free NHS treatment.

Only 5% think allowing co-payment would create a two-tier NHS. Until now this has been the position taken by Alan Johnson, the health secretary.

Ministers had feared that allowing co-payment would upset less well-off patients, but the YouGov poll of nearly 1,800 people shows strong backing across the social spectrum and supporters of all three main parties.

Read other articles in the Sunday Times campaign to highlight the plight of cancer patients denied NHS care if they pay privately for a top up medicine:

‘We’ve paid into the system all our lives. Why has the NHS turned on us?’

Cancer victim told to pay for his own drugs by NHS

Doctors for Reform fight NHS order to halt cancer care

Fighting cancer and the ‘unjust’ health service

Cancer patients fight to stop NHS withholding care

NHS threat to halt care for cancer patient

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