Legal appeal forces the NHS into the modern world

A cancer sufferer who spent 70,000 pounds on a drug that he believed would prolong his life has been told it can now be prescribed on the NHS. Keith Ditchfield, 53, a businessman who lives in Stonyhurst, Lancashire, is terminally ill. He learnt of Nexavar while receiving treatment in Germany. When he asked for the medication to be prescribed on the health service last year, he was turned down.

Since then Mr Ditchfield, has been buying the drug and believes that it has prolonged his life and left him, at least temporarily, in remission.

He has now been told that his appeal against the decision by East Lancashire Primary Care Trust has been successful. Nexavar was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2005 and is widely prescribed in Europe for advanced cancers.

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HAVING GOOD CONTACTS STILL MATTERS IN BRITISH MEDICAL CARE

Exactly what the NHS was designed to obviate

Peter Ashley was told that he had dementia seven years ago, after enduring three years of treatment for a series of wrongly diagnosed conditions that culminated in electric shock therapy.

The retired company director from Warrington recalls very well the day he and his wife were given the diagnosis of Lewy bodies dementia, a rarer form of the disease with characteristics of Parkinson's. "We literally fell apart. It was the summer, and I remember we sat on the patio for days just crying - and we are not really that sort of couple. I just did not know what it meant for my retirement plans, our plans for more holidays and, most importantly, what it would mean for my three daughters and my wife," he said.

However Mr Ashley, 71, has been fortunate, receiving excellent medical and psychiatric treatment, and he continues to live a fulfilling life. Fortunately, a neighbour held a senior post in the local mental health care trust, so he was given prompt and up-to-date advice on treatment. Unusually for early-stage dementia, he was approved for drug therapy, although only on the basis of a trial. He takes Exelon, which helps to retain cognitive function.

"I also adopted a `use it or lose it' strategy and began to lecture on dementia and sat on the NICE Guideline Development Group, which came up with recommendations for treatment. I have very bad short-term memory problems and I cannot get around very well. My spatial awareness is very poor. But I am convinced that the drugs have been a key element in helping me to retain a great deal of my mental capability," he said.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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