http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.1671961.0.cancer_specialist_speaks_in_support_of_new_drug.php

Cancer specialist speaks in support of new drug
Exclusive By Barry Nelson

A LEADING Scottish cancer specialist has praised a new drug that is helping to prolong the lives of many of her patients, but which is not available in England.

Dr Marianne Nicolson, a consultant oncologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, said it was regrettable that new drug, Tarceva, was not available on the NHS in England.

It follows a difference of opinion between drugs watchdogs that vet new medication on either side of the border.

advertisementIt means that English lung cancer patients, such as Dave Hill, 45, from Darlington, are having to pay £1,700 a month to fund the drug privately.

Dr Nicolson said she had no doubt that Tarceva helped many advanced lung cancer patients.

The consultant, who is attending an international lung cancer conference in South Korea, said: "It is difficult to see how a drug that is clinically acceptable for use in Scotland should be rejected in England."

Her comments followed the launch of a campaign by The Northern Echo that aims to highlight the difficulties faced by patients across the North-East and North Yorkshire when faced with so-called postcode rationing.

The newspaper has highlighted the case of Richmond kidney cancer patient Barbara Selby.

Mrs Selby cannot get access to a fully licensed new drug called Sutent on the NHS because she lives in North Yorkshire and her local primary care trust has so far declined to fund it.

After articles in The Northern Echo, the North-East and Cumbria Cancer Drug Approvals Group recently decided to fund Sutent. However, it does not help Mrs Selby, who lives seven miles outside the area covered by the group's advice.

On Monday, The Northern Echo also featured the story of former builder Mr Hill, a 45-year-old father-of-four and step-father-of-three.

His cancer specialist wants to prescribe Tarceva on the NHS, but because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued provisional guidance that use of Tarceva is not cost-effective, he will have to find more than £1,700 a month.

A fundraising campaign, headed by images of his six-year-old daughter, Chantelle, is under way.

(The cost for the English saving the Union is now as much in lives as it is money)

Could it be possible to just have one 'Lostboy takes on the Scottish Raj' thread for all these snipets? You could even have it stickified, if it means so much to you.

Yes that sounds like a reasonable compromise.

Ah there is no scandal there in my opinion, two watchdogs, different opinions, so what (of course individually terrible)?

Because there have been many such cases, it is about cost-cutting. Scots get paid over a thousand pounds more per capita on health spending than we English. We are not lesser people.

So if we were separate countries, we would have this drug?
...The watchdog would still come to the same conclusion


Shut up lostboy

Funding plays a large part in that decision, costs have to be cut somewhere unfortunately, and yes if we weren't watering Scotland to the point of saturation whilst dying of thirst ourselves, then this poor man might not be having to pay to stay alive.

You might be an Uncle Tom or should that be Uncle Angus, but there are many more people who care about such an injustice.

another wank thread hey?

Is any of this stuff either Scotland's or the Union's fault?

exactly Tony, these decisions aren't taken by government leaders or by public vote...
:ohno:

His cancer specialist wants to prescribe Tarceva on the NHS, but because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued provisional guidance that use of Tarceva is not cost-effective, he will have to find more than £1,700 a month.



I think this little paragraph is the key, Lostboy. There's a different cohort of people up here, thus a drug which may be cost-effective in Scotland may not be cost effective in England. Without knowing too much about the economic evaluation that has gone into authorising the drug up here, I can say that the Lung Cancer death rate is much higher up here than in England and I expect that the cost-benefit to Scottish society of having a few extra lung cancer survivors as a result of this drug might well outweigh the costs of prescribing them this drug or not prescribing it and having a few more people go through expensive chemo and radiotherapy.

Because there have been many such cases, it is about cost-cutting. Scots get paid over a thousand pounds more per capita on health spending than we English. We are not lesser people.

So what next? A thread opened by a Scot about the Channel tunnel rail link and demanding that if England gets a long tunnel Scotland should get one too just for the sake of it? If Scotland doesn't win the rugby world cup England isn't allowed? And so on and on and on and on. Stop the annoying penny pinching. There will always be regional differences in parts of the United Kingdom, as there are in every nation. I don't want to become a Canada where one part always bitches if it doesn't get the exact percentage of things it should get.

Is any of this stuff either Scotland's or the Union's fault?

It's certainly not the Scottish Peoples fault if they try and get everything they can from the Union, who can blame them, on the other hand of course it is the fault of the Union.

So what next? A thread opened by a Scot about the Channel tunnel rail link and demanding that if England gets a long tunnel Scotland should get one too just for the sake of it? If Scotland doesn't win the rugby world cup England isn't allowed? And so on and on and on and on. Stop the annoying penny pinching.

You've lost it here.

There will always be regional differences in parts of the United Kingdom, as there are in every nation. I don't want to become a Canada where one part always bitches if it doesn't get the exact percentage of things it should get.

So basically your message is, "of course it is unfair, but stop complaining over what happens to your money", we wouldn't want to end up like Canada, a free and democratic nation.

And regional differences shoudl be based either on:-

1. Income raised within those regions.
2. Need.

The fact is Scots not only get more money but get autonomy and the ability to decide English Only issues. Alex Salmond provides a neat solution to this problem - the disposal of the union, and the right to enter the future as free and seperate nations, living alongside each other with cordial relations, working in co-operation, but not subordination to the other.

To many people including on this forum turn a blind eye to this discracefull,shocking issue it allways baffles me as its to these peoples benefit..
Another of the very many reasons why the union is clearly not working.

You've lost it here.

Ah from you that must mean I'm alright.


So basically your message is, "of course it is unfair, but stop complaining over what happens to your money", we wouldn't want to end up like Canada, a free and democratic nation.

My message is the one I posted, that it is impossible to have a nation where every nation has the same GDP per capita, the same revenues per capita, the same expenditure per capita and so on. Lots of countries spend more money on poorer parts of their nation, an example is Germany for example.

And regional differences shoudl be based either on:-

1. Income raised within those regions.
2. Need.

In a society that cares about the whole nation, it should be a roughly similar expenditure per capita but with some more money for the poorer regions, and Scotland is a poorer region of the UK. That doesn't mean that the system is perfect and England could well need more money or should get more money but that is not a strong argument for breaking up something that has worked well for over 300 years and has provided prosperity and security for the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The fact is Scots not only get more money but get autonomy and the ability to decide English Only issues. Alex Salmond provides a neat solution to this problem - the disposal of the union, and the right to enter the future as free and seperate nations, living alongside each other with cordial relations, working in co-operation, but not subordination to the other.

The four countries of the UK already live in a free and democratic nation and there can't be better relations than being one nation. Continue your agenda of hatred but I and many other will resist it.

Ah from you that must mean I'm alright.

No it means you've concocted an argument dumber than even that of eusebius or pricemazda.

My message is the one I posted, that it is impossible to have a nation where every nation has the same GDP per capita, the same revenues per capita, the same expenditure per capita and so on. Lots of countries spend more money on poorer parts of their nation, an example is Germany for example

Scotland isn't significantly poorer than England, and considerably richer than regions such as the North-East. Besides in Germany there is not a privileged political class that get their own autonomy, whilst this is denied to the remaining part of the country.

In a society that cares about the whole nation, it should be a roughly similar expenditure per capita but with some more money for the poorer regions, and Scotland is a poorer region of the UK. That doesn't mean that the system is perfect and England could well need more money or should get more money but that is not a strong argument for breaking up something that has worked well for over 300 years and has provided prosperity and security for the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It is injust. Either the UK must change, or the UK must go. Pick your choice, but the status quo is not an option, not for the English, not for the Scots.

The four countries of the UK already live in a free and democratic nation and there can't be better relations than being one nation. Continue your agenda of hatred but I and many other will resist it.

Resisting is like pushing back a glacier. The genie of devolution is out of the bottle, there is no putting it back in.

So what next? A thread opened by a Scot about the Channel tunnel rail link and demanding that if England gets a long tunnel Scotland should get one too just for the sake of it? If Scotland doesn't win the rugby world cup England isn't allowed? And so on and on and on and on. Stop the annoying penny pinching. There will always be regional differences in parts of the United Kingdom, as there are in every nation. I don't want to become a Canada where one part always bitches if it doesn't get the exact percentage of things it should get.

That is just the sort of prickish 'well they get that so we want some too' idiocy the news is meant to draw! So some moaner put a post on a skyscraper site and we should disband the union? FFS!

To many people including on this forum turn a blind eye to this discracefull,shocking issue it allways baffles me as its to these peoples benefit..
Another of the very many reasons why the union is clearly not working.

but the solution would be to rectify the 'imbalance' where there is indeed a real inbalance. Going to the extreme of smashing the union in a fit of pique is just about the level of the thinking anti unionists have raised so far!

As Losboy says.. two options, you take the sensible one and change the union, as has been said millions of times.


We also never get into the EU issue with this 'freedom for albion' wankiness!

Answers please?

To many people including on this forum turn a blind eye to this discracefull,shocking issue it allways baffles me as its to these peoples benefit..
Another of the very many reasons why the union is clearly not working.

I don't turn a blind eye. I have big issues with the whole West Lothian debacle, but don't feel the need to turn to bigoted nationalism as the answer to counteract it. The fact too many people are indifferent to it is hardly a case the union isn't working, more politics isn't working.