The PCT has now reflected the reality that the Secretary of State effectively over-ruled the NICE licensing review process for use of this drug in early-stage breast cancer, with her statement to the House of Commons on 5th October 2005. This allowed the postcode lottery for this treatment to develop.
Locally this has led to the ridiculous situation where, for example, Welsh residents were able to be treated on the NHS in Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, but Shropshire residents were not. This system failure within the NHS should be scrapped so that patients with similar medical conditions are not discriminated against on the basis of where they live."
Shropshire's Conservative MPs met County PCT health chiefs last Friday and pointed out the difficulty which the Secretary of State had created for them. Why should Shropshire breast cancer sufferers have to wait, or pay privately over the odds for this treatment, if the only reason their specialist consultants could not prescribe it was a determination by the PCT to hold out for a change in formal Government guidelines, when the local hospital was already treating patients from a neighbouring area? The issue of "system failure" within the NHS, prompted by the consequences for PCTs of the Secretary of State's comments last October, are to be considered at a board meeting of Shropshire County NHS today. If the Board agrees this has occurred, it may open the way to other women in Shropshire being eligible for Herceptin treatment.
Photo: Philip Dunne with Sharon Moore of the Herceptin 4 Shropshire Now campaign
