Salford: Woman fights for NHS cancer drug

A woman terminally ill with kidney cancer could now be given a drug which could prolong her life, after a High Court ruling - reports ITV News.

Sutent has not yet been approved by the government and is not automatically available on the NHS.

Jean Murphy, a 62-year-old grandmother from Salford, had twice been denied the drug by Salford Primary Care Trust on the grounds that it is too expensive.

Dr Mike Burrows from the trust said before the ruling: "We have a limited amount of resources and have to make decisions on which treatments we are prepared to fund and which we cannot fund. We have to use health economics to support those decisions."

Ruling on the case, Mr Justice Burnett said the Trust's commissioning panel had failed to consider Mrs Murphy's application "in the round", and to take into account her day-to-day responsibility for caring for her husband who has a heart condition and diabetes.

This is yet another example of how the abject waste of £115 million a week paid to the audit-failing European Union - an unjustifiable 63% increase on the annual amount Britain paid between 2001-06 - is causing real suffering and shortfalls in essential public services.

In particular, Salford MP Hazel Blears needs to explain why she voted to approve paying this extra money to the EU while her local hospital clearly cannot provide services her constituents need, and blame a "limited amount of resources".

With public finances tightening, we can no longer afford to hand over so much money to the European Union. Especially as the "majority" of the EU's spending has not been approved by auditors for 13 years running, and there are so many reports of waste and fraud - going on even within EU institutions themselves.

Evidence continues to grow that it's time to Stop the Cheques to the EU.