Major public events threatened by policing charges

Major open air events are increasingly under threat due to high costs being charged by police forces.

The Downs Mail reports that popular community events in Maidstone such as the River Festival, Maidstone Mela and Battle of Maidstone re-enactment are threatened by a £43,000 quote from the police for attending just one event for a day.

This quote, for the 28-year old River Festival, covers eight hours of one chief inspector, three inspectors, fourteen sergeants and eighty constables.

Police can use discretion and have offered a 50% discount, but that still leaves a potentially devastating charge of £21,726 (including VAT) - an almost impossible challenge for the organisers.

Questions are being asked about why public events with a largely trouble-free history are now being faced with such huge charges and the cost is no longer being budgeted into the council tax precept which funds local policing.

Maidstone Borough Commander, chief inspector Tony Henley, said that Kent Police's decision to introduce 'common charges' for events reflected Association of Chief Police Officers' national policy.

Maidstone: Campaign to save hospital services

Local campaigns to save services in Maidstone Hospital are to be co-ordinated in a new organisation called MASH (Maidstone Action for Services in Hospitals) - reports the Downs Mail.

The group is already supported by Maidstone's two MPs, cabinet members of both Kent and Maidstone councils, Maidstone Division of the British Medical Association, the two main local newspapers the Downs Mail and Kent Messenger, together with patients and relatives.

Maidstone Hospital has several mountains to climb, including better management of C-Diff infections which killed more than 90 patients and led to a damning report by the Healthcare Commission.

While the hospital's record is now improving, reports still abound of A&E patients being "stacked" in ambulances due to serious delays in emergency admissions.

December saw a significant increase in the number of people waiting over four hours from a decision to admit to admission - 941 waited more than four hours, with 4 patients waiting more than twelve hours).

The main reason was said to be a lack of beds in A&E.

The hospital also has continuing financial problems, with the trust facing a deficit of £18.7m for 2008/09 and a total savings requirement of £21.2m - amounts that could be wiped out with two days' worth of our payments into the audit-failing European Union budget, if that wasted money were diverted into hospital services.

Woman 'denied sight-save drugs'

A grandmother has said she will go blind unless she can persuade her local NHS to fund drug treatment - reports the BBC.

Margaret Coates, 79, from Bromley, south-east London, has wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which can lead to blindness in both eyes.

Her local Primary Care Trust (PCT) will not pay for a drug called Lucentis, Mrs Coates said.

Bromley PCT said patients who did not meet London-wide treatment criteria could apply for exceptional treatment.

Wet AMD, which affects the central part of the retina, is the leading cause of sight loss in the UK, affecting around a quarter of a million people.

Last year the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommended that NHS patients with wet AMD should be eligible for sight-saving drug Lucentis.

But the availability of the treatment, which can cost thousands of pounds, varies between PCTs.

Mrs Coates, 79, said: "I can't believe the PCT is abandoning me like this when I could lose my sight.

"The thought of going blind terrifies me"

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Macular Disease Society (MDS) are campaigning for Bromley PCT to reverse its decision and fund the treatment.

Bromley PCT said it funds Lucentis treatment for Bromley residents with AMD in line with criteria agreed for the whole of south-east London.

"Patients who do not meet these criteria can apply through their clinician to the PCT's exceptional treatments group," a spokesman said.

In order to qualify there must be an "unusual or unique clinical factor" that differentiates the patient from others with the condition, he said.

Kidney cancer man's drugs fight

A man with kidney cancer says he has been refused a drug that could save his life and is still waiting for treatment 18 months after being diagnosed - reports the BBC.

Jocelyn Hall, 60, of Tonna, Neath, is taking his local health board (LHB) to judicial review after it refused to pay for him to have the drug, Sunitinib.

Neath Port Talbot LHB said each case for the drug was reviewed individually.

Mr Hall was diagnosed with kidney cancer in September 2006, a fortnight after he gave his notice so he could retire after working in Neath's Metal Box can factory for 44 years.

Surgeons were unable to operate because his tumour had spread to other organs.

Mr Hall's oncologist at Swansea's Singleton Hospital, Professor John Wagstaff, said the drug treatment he wanted his patient to have cost £2,300 every six weeks.

He said: "I've got a number of patients in exactly the same situation, not just with Neath Port Talbot but with other LHBs in south west Wales.

"It's a continuing battle. If he does not get this drug, the only management available to him is to control his symptoms."

Mr Hall's sister, Rosemarie Snow, said: "He has worked all his life and paid into cancer research all his life and he's got nothing.

"The drugs won't cure him but they will help prolong his life. After he worked 44 years of his life, he wants to enjoy his retirement.

Kate Spall, who has become a patient support advocate since her mother died from a rare kidney cancer, said Mr Hall was the "most exceptional" of the more than 40 cases she had advised.

She said: "He has not treatment for nearly two years for terminal cancer. That is just unheard of.

"In Wales today, somebody has not had had one piece of active treatment. That's Third World. That's unbelievable."

A spokeswoman for Neath Port Talbot LHB said she could not comment on individual cases because of confidentiality.

But she said that the local health board took guidance from the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, which said the use of Sumitinib should not be supported in Wales.