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A furious political row is set to erupt this week over a key part of David Cameron’s health service strategy. The Cancer Drugs Fund, which was set up at the prime minister’s behest to bring last-chance drugs to dying patients, is expected to have its soaring costs severely trimmed by an NHS England review. The move will draw attention to intense criticisms of what was one of the prime minister’s flagship health plans. Some doctors claim the fund is “an unethical political fix”.
Pharmaceutical companies have already expressed outrage because their drugs will no longer be bought through the fund and have warned that thousands of terminally ill cancer patients will lose crucial palliative care.
At the same time, other health experts say that the reining in of the fund – set up to promote expensive cancer medicines in priority to drugs for all other diseases – reveals its creation was merely a politically expedient move aimed at ending the embarrassment of tabloid tales about cancer patients being denied “life-saving” drugs. They want the CDF to be axed.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/10/cancer-drugs-fund-waste-of-nhs-cash-david-cameron
Pharmaceutical companies have already expressed outrage because their drugs will no longer be bought through the fund and have warned that thousands of terminally ill cancer patients will lose crucial palliative care.
At the same time, other health experts say that the reining in of the fund – set up to promote expensive cancer medicines in priority to drugs for all other diseases – reveals its creation was merely a politically expedient move aimed at ending the embarrassment of tabloid tales about cancer patients being denied “life-saving” drugs. They want the CDF to be axed.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/10/cancer-drugs-fund-waste-of-nhs-cash-david-cameron