Dorset Echo
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10-Jul-2007 - The lottery of NHS treatment
The lottery of NHS treatment By Laura Kitching
A CANCER sufferer who was refused a new kidney treatment from the Dorset Primary Care Trust is the victim of a postcode lottery, a patient support group said today.
Susan Tyler, 59, of Stoke Abbott, near Beaminster, believes the drug Sunitinib - known as Sutent - is her only hope but she has been denied treatment despite it being made available to kidney cancer sufferers in other parts of the country.
She said: "We know that other PCTs over the country have funded the drug - two are Somerset and Gloucester. This is a matter of life or death to me and many like me and at the moment we are in the hands of a postcode lottery."
The mother-of-two was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year but despite having a kidney removed, the cancer spread into a lymph node.
She said: "The fact is that when you're diagnosed with cancer it's traumatic anyway, and once it goes into a lymph node, it will get the better of you.
"For people with kidney cancer this drug is their only hope. The cancer doesn't respond to chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and the old drug Interferon has quite bad side effects.
advertisement "I haven't really been ill, obviously I'm tired and things like that but not ill enough to go on Interferon which will make me very ill.
"But at some stage I will need it, when I'm in pain or incapacitated."
Ms Tyler goes for CT scans and sees an oncologist at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester every three months.
She said that despite her oncologist recommending her for Sutent when her GP requested it from the PCT, she was denied treatment and she is taking her case to appeal on August 7.
She said: "It's a big issue, people being denied drugs.
"The Sutent treatment, the first new drug for kidney cancer sufferers in 25 years, is classed as a wonder drug.
"It is expensive, but we have asked the PCT lots of questions and found out that one person was given it and two people were refused it."
Rose Woodward, head of the Kidney Cancer Patients' Support Group, said Ms Tyler certainly is a victim of a postcode lottery happening all over the country.
She said: "It's a cost thing and really sad. It's very difficult to tell someone facing terminal cancer that there is a drug that could help you but local authorities won't fund it. Sutent is really just a life-extending drug, same as all other cancer drugs - nobody's got a cure for cancer yet, I wish they had."
Dorset Primary Care Trust spokesman Claire Warner said: "We can't comment on individual patients but Sutent is not recognised by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) - it's still a trial drug in this country and NICE is the national organisation which undertakes investigations into new and trial drugs and decides whether they should be mainstream."
She added: "Until NICE says it's suitable for use across the NHS each PCT can only look at patients' requests on a case-by-case basis, and if the patient is unhappy with the result there's an appeal process."
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Comments
Posted by: Jeanette Cox on 2:18pm Tue 10 Jul 07 How awful medication depends on where you live!![bold]bold[/bold] This is the year 2007 surely if medication is needed it should be given to all not just the people with the correct postcode How awful medication depends on where you live!! This is the year 2007 surely if medication is needed it should be given to all not just the people with the correct postcodeQuote
Posted by: Ruth Steele, Wokingham, Berkshire on 5:32pm Tue 10 Jul 07 What is the point of having these drugs if they are not given to those who need them. Why can't we have them in this country if other counties have the. This is one of the richest countries in the world. What is the point of having these drugs if they are not given to those who need them. Why can't we have them in this country if other counties have the. This is one of the richest countries in the world.
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