Trust backs down on Sutent prescription
18 April 2007
BBC News web site today reported how Lincolnshire Primary Trust relented and agreed to give a drug medication to a Lincolnshire kidney cancer patient who had been forced to fund his treatment himself.
The patient, John Harford, 63, from Thorpe on the Hill, said he was paying £3,600 a month for the drug Sutent but his savings were running low. He took his case Exceptional Case Committee and has won.
Like most Trusts, they had refused to pay for the drug Sutent, saying it was a new prescription and not routinely funded.
Lincolnshire Primary Trust has now agreed to supply it for three months following an appeal.
Mr Harford was diagnosed with kidney cancer a year ago and said: "I am able to live a more or less normal life - it is a wonder drug.
"I have a bit of savings and can pay for the Sutent for now - but for patients who do not have savings - as far as the NHS is concerned they are going to die."
The couple were forced to pay £9,000 for a private operation to remove a tumour associated with kidney cancer. They had the private surgery after two scheduled NHS operations were cancelled due to shortage of intensive-care beds in Lincoln.
In a statement the Trust said it had never prescribed Sutent, but always considered each request on a patient-by-patient basis, based on the published evidence of effectiveness and cost.
This gives hope to all kidney cancer sufferers to stand up against the wave of rebuttals from GP who should prescribe Sutent but, because of budgets, are being refused.
The full story can be found here
