Norfolk: Retired fireman loses battle for cancer drug

A retired fireman has suffered a setback in his battle to win funding for a cancer drug, reports the Eastern Daily Press.

Liver cancer patient Barry Humphrey has lost an appeal for a £5,000 trial for a drug aimed at buying him more time.

His upset wife Hazel says health bosses have “sentenced him to an early death” though their latest decision.

After 25 years service saving lives as a fireman in London, Mr Humphrey developed a rare cancer, triggered by hepatitis caught from a casualty during a rescue.

But officials at NHS Norfolk have decided not to fund treatment recommended by his consultant, saying Mr Humphrey's case fails to meet national cost-effectiveness guidelines on new drugs.

The couple, from Kimberley Road, are now seeing if there is anywhere else they can take their fight.

Funding the two-month trial treatment themselves was a last option - but they were reluctant having been told they would be opting out of the NHS, resulting in them having to pick up all treatment costs.

Fewer than 5% of liver cancer patients survive more than five years, so time is not on the Humphreys' side without some kind of treatment. And Barry says his consultants believe there are no other alternative drugs.

NHS Norfolk medical director Bryan Heap said treatment funding decisions were taken on clinical rather than social circumstances, so Mr Humphrey's past as an exemplary citizen unfortunately could not be taken into consideration.

The cost of Sorafenib, along with administration, extra scans and follow-up was £150,000 a year, and trials indicated an increase in life expectancy of 12 weeks, with no cure or reduction of symptoms.

Guidelines recommended not funding a new drug if the figure was greater than £30,000, he added.

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats health spokesman who has been backing Mr Humphrey's battle, said he was “horrified” by the appeal refusal, and would be seeking to meet a senior official from NHS Norfolk to argue the case.

Smith 'betrayed' police over pay

The home secretary has "betrayed the police service" by refusing to backdate a 2.5% pay rise, the BBC reports today.

Speaking at its conference, the Police Federation chairman Jan Berry said that Jacqui Smith's decision had been "a monumental mistake".

Last year, Jacqui Smith decided not to backdate to September a 2.5% pay rise for police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The police say this means their rise, only paid from December 2007, in reality amounts to 1.9%.

On Tuesday, federation members voted to lobby for the right to strike.

Ms Berry also compared Ms Smith to Education Secretary Ed Balls who has recently defended a pay deal for teachers. "Home Secretary, what is it that Mr Balls has but you do not?" she asked.

"Your decision not to honour the pay award was a breach of faith", she said. "It was a monumental mistake, and I don't say this lightly when I say you betrayed the police service."

Ms Smith later addressed the 1,000 conference delegates, saying: "I know you strongly disagree with the decision, but it was one that I took only after a lot of thought, after considering the full facts of the case, the need to keep mortgages and the cost of living under control - and that includes your mortgages and your families' cost of living as well."

Neglecting to mention that the government regards it 'affordable' to reward the repeatedly audit-failing EU with a 63% increase in public funds - or £2.5bn a year extra for the next five years.

Is the wasteful and extravagant EU really a higher priority than fair pay for our Police? That's certainly the message Jacqui Smith is sending, and isn't one that's likely to be well-received at the ballot box come the next general election.

Elderly care faces £6bn shortfall

Every working family could face paying an "ageing tax" to provide care for the elderly, Gordon Brown proposed yesterday.

The ageing tax is a central plank of a six month consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly.

The Daily Mail reports that this new tax would take the form of a compulsory levy to force people to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives.

The introduction of such a tax would reignite questions, most recently provoked over charges for rubbish collections, about what exactly people pay Council Tax for - if all the services that it's supposed to cover have to be paid for over again.

According to the BBC report, Gordon Brown says that the care system in England alone faces a £6bn shortfall within 20 years. An amount that just happens to be exactly the same as our new net annual contribution to the EU's leaky budget, which Gordon Brown agreed to following a deal done by Tony Blair in December 2005.

The PM claims that the Treasury cannot pay the fast-rising cost of care homes and home help as the number of elderly people increases, and that the system now needs a 'radical shake up' to avoid this cash crunch.

But another possible solution could be that, rather than force everyone to pay yet another tax, we stop wasting billions of pounds a year on the EU, the "majority" of whose spending has been a mystery to its auditors for 13 years in a row.

Why won't Gordon Brown consider stopping this blatant waste of exactly the amount of money he needs, in order to prevent elderly care services deteriorating or hitting people with yet more taxes?

The new consultation paper was launched by Mr Brown in a talk at the King's Fund, the research group that published the 2006 report on the cost of ageing by Sir Derek Wanless.

Sir Derek estimated that an extra £10billion is needed to make the care system work properly, but there was only a token £31million of new money on offer yesterday - just under two days worth of what the Government is prepared to hand the EU. A terrible example of the government's warped priorities with scarce public funds.

Yesterday's consultation paper, endorsed by Mr Brown and seven Cabinet ministers, put back any decisions until next year.

UK's flood defences 'inadequate', warn MPs

Britain could be at risk of a repeat of last summer's flood disaster because the money being spent on improving defences is "inadequate" - reports the Daily Telegraph today.

Ministers had claimed that the £800m earmarked for flood prevention by 2010-2011 (in contrast, equivalent to a mere
7 weeks of our net payments to the EU budget) would be enough.

But MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) have warned that the figure for government spending was "far less impressive under close analysis" and may be insufficient to deal with traditional and new flooding threats.

Last night the government announced £31m from the European Union's Solidarity Fund would be spent on the areas worst hit by the floods (not even two days worth of the NET amount we pay into the EU budget).

The floods in June and July last year, mainly in Yorkshire, Humberside and the Midlands were the worst for 60 years causing £3bn of damage and leaving 13 people dead.

A total of 44,600 homes and 7,100 businesses were flooded and thousands more people were left without power and water.

Nine months on the misery was still continuing for thousands who had not been able to return to their devastated homes.

So why is the government's professed commitment to prevent future flooding so miniscule in comparison to the funds it is prepared to lavish on the wasteful, audit-failing EU?

Are these the priorities we expect?