MP's back Wilson's drug plea

Two Manchester MPs are backing a campaign by music legend Anthony Wilson to persuade local health bosses to provide a pioneering cancer drug on the NHS - reports the Manchester Evening News.

Mr Wilson - known as `Mr Manchester' - was denied a new drug for kidney cancer called Sutent on the NHS and is now paying for the £3,500-a-month treatment with the help of friends.

Sutent has doubled the life expectancy of some patients in trials but is still being assessed for use across the NHS so individual health trusts are deciding on a case-by-case basis if they wish to fund it.

Two patients being treated alongside Mr Wilson at the Christie ARE receiving funding for the therapy because they live a few miles away in Cheshire, where a much higher proportion of patients are being funded.

Health bosses in Cumbria have also decided to fund the treatment for their patients, some of whom are cared for at Manchester's Christie Hospital.

Graham Stringer MP for Manchester Blackley and Tony Lloyd MP for Manchester Central have written to Manchester Primary Care Trust to ask them to pay for the drug until the Government watchdog decides whether Sutent should be provided nationally.

The letter reads: "We are writing to you following reports in the Manchester Evening News that a number of patients in Greater Manchester are not being allowed to be treated with the kidney cancer drug called Sutent, although we understand patients from Cumbria and Cheshire are receiving this treatment.

"We consider this to be completely unacceptable and would ask you to review this policy."

Health bosses say they have to make very difficult decisions in order to provide the best care for patients and have good procedures in place to look at the effectiveness of new drugs.

The M.E.N. has learned that in the last 16 months PCTs in Greater Manchester have turned down eight requests for Sutent backed by doctors at the Christie and approved one, while Central and East Cheshire PCT have turned down one patient and approved two.

Four people who were refused treatment with the new drugs on the NHS , including Mr Wilson, are paying privately.

He said: "I want to know what has happened to the 11 people who can't afford to pay for treatment.

"I want to know what their lives are like now, have they been sentenced to death by this decision? It is a scandal."

Manchester NHS Primary Care Trust, which has refused to pay for Mr Wilson's treatment, says there is not enough `demonstrable evidence to support the use of this drug in treating kidney cancer.'

But Prof Robert Hawkins, a kidney cancer expert from Christie, believes the refusals come down to cost - even though he estimates the total bill if Sutent was routinely available on the NHS would be £2m a year for Greater Manchester.

He said: "There is no doubt it would be available if it was cheap. I will now be able to prescribe Sutent to patients from Cumbria but not routinely to anyone else - which puts me as a doctor in a difficult position.

"I am delighted local MPs have asked the PCTs to look again at this issue. The PCTs in the north east looked at the best available new evidence and cost-effectiveness data taking full account of recent price reductions and accepted it was a cost-effective treatment. I would urge the Manchester PCTs to look again at this fuller information."

Tony Lloyd said: "If someone living a few metres over the border into Macclesfield can have this treatment but someone living in my constituency cannot, it can never be acceptable."

When the medical experts, in this case senior doctors from the Christie who are certainly regional experts and is some cases nationally and internationally renowned, recommend a treatment for a certain condition we have to take that seriously."

Graham Stringer said: "We are asking them to reconsider, this is not a maverick treatment, it is recommended by doctors and some patients are already being treated with it."

We contacted Manchester PCT but they said they were unable to comment on the letter because it raised issues involving health trusts across Greater Manchester.

Previously Shauna Dixon, clinical director for Oldham PCT, which is leading Greater Manchester cancer drug commissioning, said: "Every effort is made to make sure the best care is provided to patients.

"All NHS trusts give careful consideration to the very difficult decisions they make when they look at individual cases to make sure they safely meet their medical needs. A clear framework is used to ensure there is good evidence to demonstrate a drug is effective."