The ban on patients paying extra for 'top-up' drugs on the NHS will be lifted, health secretary Alan Johnson has announced.He told MPs this afternoon that patients who pay privately for life-extending drugs will no longer lose their right to free NHS care.
It is thought up to 15,000 patients a year might choose to pay for drugs the NHS will not fund because they are too expensive or are awaiting approval.
Mr Johnson said reforms by the rationing watchdog NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, would make more drugs available without patients having to foot the bill.
A new system will change the way NICE calculates whether a drug is cost effective, giving greater weight to the value of a few extra months for a terminally-ill patient, and will speed up the process.
It is hoped the system will increase the availability on the NHS of expensive drugs for rarer cancers, which cost more for pharmaceutical firms to develop because their potential market is smaller.
The Department of Health will also enter into 'risk sharing' deals with drugs firms, under which new drugs are initially sold more cheaply to get under the cost effectiveness threshold. If they prove more worthwhile in practice than was expected, their price can be raised.
It costs an average of £21,000 a year to buy cancer drugs privately, and the reforms have raised fears of a 'two-tier' NHS because they will mean a rich patient will be able to afford treatment denied to someone less well-off.
There are also concerns that the change could make primary care trusts reluctant to fund expensive drugs under the 'exceptional cases' system, relying on patients to buy the drugs themselves.
Mr Johnson said those paying for top-ups should receive 'separate' care, with the drugs being administered outside NHS grounds or in a private wing of a hospital.
(dailymail)
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