Remember the Opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games which included children celebrating the role of the National Health Service (NHS) in British society? Wonder if any of those kids will be sorry if they need cancer treatments in the future?
Children used as NHS propaganda during the 2012 London Olympics Ceremony
Cancer drugs taken by more than 12,000 people a year are set to be axed, under NHS plans approved yesterday, reports the Daily Mail.
Medicines rationing body National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (quite an ironic acronym, don’t you think?) is to reassess all 47 cancer treatments currently available via the Cancer Drugs Fund. Of these, 23 drugs have previously been refused by the regulator and experts fear that they will be again.
The move – which experts warn will set cancer treatment ‘back by a generation’ – is part of a massive shake-up of the £400million fund, which has repeatedly overspent its budget due to overwhelming demand.
NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh, who drew up the plans, said pharmaceutical companies could easily make the drugs available by simply dropping their price. But critics say the proposals are too rigid for the state of modern medicine, and will lead to patients missing out.
The Cancer Drugs Fund was launched in 2010 to pay for medicines not routinely approved by NICE. Initially its budget was capped at £175million a year, but this rose to £416million as demand grew, with patients paying the price of subsequent cutbacks. Now control of the drugs are to be handed back to NICE – which employs a tough cost-benefit threshold – in a bid to rein in spending.
Cancer charities said the decision means uncertainty for thousands of patients.
NICE has not updated its rules for drug evaluation since 2001.
Decisions are based on a ‘quality-adjusted life year’ score, by which the cost is calculated of giving patients an extra ‘quality’ year of life. If that score is deemed to be above £30,000, or £50,000 for seriously ill patients, the drug is not funded.But critics say that this system has not moved with the times, with targeted, gene-based drugs now often costing in excess of £70,000 a year.
Some 23 of the 47 treatments currently on the Cancer Drugs Fund have been judged not to be cost effective by NICE either in draft or final guidance in the past.
It is estimated that 12,026 patients would receive these treatments in 2015/16, were no changes to be made. Another 10,000 patients are already to miss out due to previous cutbacks made last year.
Officials insisted that any patient already taking a treatment available on the Cancer Drugs Fund will continue to receive their medicine. Funding will also continue for new patients, but only until NICE has a chance to re-assess the drugs.
Read the whole story here.
Ain’t socialized health care grand?
DCG
