By Tamara Cohen
Patients will be allowed to top up their Health Service treatment with drugs bought privately in a U-turn by the government, it was reported last night.
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, is said to be poised to relax the ban on patients paying for life-extending treatments while receiving NHS care.
Until now ministers have refused to allow individuals to combine NHS and private treatments saying such a move would undermine the ethos of the Health Service.
But Mr Johnson has been under pressure to reform the system after experts ruled it to be unsustainable.
A source told The Times that ministers hope an independent review of the issue next month will help to make the case for change.
‘Whatever is recommended won’t satisfy everyone. There is no magic bullet that resolves this very difficult issue’, a senior figure told the newspaper.
A Department of Health spokesman last night played down the reports, saying ministers had launched a review in July looking into the issue.
‘The review will report back in October. Ministers are looking into this but no decisions have been made’, she said.
It is understood there will be reforms made to the system under which local NHS committees decide which patients are exceptional cases, and can receive drugs not yet approved by NICE.
Professor Mike Richards, the national cancer director, is conducting the review into ‘co-payment’.
Mr Johnson agreed to reconsider the issue in June after a series of reports about patients who were refused NHS care after buying drugs for cancers of the kidney, bowel, lung, breast and multiple myeloma.
There was a public outcry over the death in March of Linda O”Boyle, a grandmother who was denied free NHS treatment after buying a drug to treat her bowel cancer.
If top-ups are allowed, these are likely to be capped, and patients may also have to pay for any associated costs incurred by the NHS such as treatment for side effects.
Any changes would be accompanied by measures to speed up the approval process for new drugs and make them cheaper, the source added.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence assesses the cost-effectiveness of new medicines and recommends whether they should be provided by the NHS in England and Wales.
Where it has turned down a drug, or has yet to make a decision, patients can appeal to their local NHS primary care trust to be treated as an exceptional case.
Those who favour top-ups argue that a postcode lottery already exists where patients in some areas are granted treatments that could extend their lives while others are not.
Earlier this month, the King’s Fund, a health policy think tank called for patients to be allowed to pay for top-up drugs to stop the creation of a black market in cancer drugs.
Professor Karol Sikora, a leading cancer specialist who supports top-ups, said: “This situation cannot go on, it’s against natural justice.’
But some doctors, MPs and the Royal College of Nursing argue allowing wealthier patients to purchase better care will lead to a two-tier system based on ability to pay rather than clinical need.
Professor Richards said that he was in discussions with patient groups NHS staff, pharmaceutical companies and the insurance industry over which patients would be willing to pay for extra care.
