NHS 'is still failing over IVF treatment'

Less than half of NHS trusts fund the transfer of frozen IVF embryos, despite guidance saying they should, the London Metro newspaper reports today.

In 2004, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said that primary care trusts should allow spare embryos produced as a result of fertility treatment - that can be frozen and implanted later - to be transferred as part of the NHS treatment.

But a letter from health minister Dawn Primarolo has revealed that many are still failing to pay for this part of the treatment, and has also revealed a continuing postcode lottery over IVF treatment in England.

Ms Primarolo said that the government recognised this caused "distress to many childless couples".

But presumably she nevertheless intends to vote billions more pounds to the audit-failing EU that could provide NHS trusts with the resources they need to correct this problem. Therein lies the hypocrisy.

NHS maternity care 'is in crisis'

Fears over the standard of NHS services for expectant mothers were heightened last night after it emerged that the number of maternity beds has fallen by up to 40% in some regions - reports the Daily Telegraph.

The information, obtained from a parliamentary answer, said that since Labour came to power in 1997, there had been an 18% reduction in the number of maternity beds for every 100,000 people - equivalent to almost 2,000 beds in the past 10 years.

But in some strategic health authority areas, the drop was much more dramatic with reductions of 40% in north-west London and South Yorkshire.

There were 35% fewer maternity beds in the Leicestershire, Northants and Rutland area as well in the South-West Peninsula authority area since 1997.

Even in the County Durham and Tees Valley, where until recently Tony Blair had his constituency, the decline was 32%.

A Tory spokesman insisted that Labour could not claim that home births made up for the decline as Government figures showed that only 2% of women gave birth at home in 2006/07.

The answer also highlighted the relative lack of midwives, confirming that their numbers are not keeping pace with the number of live births.

Since 2001, the number of live births had risen by 12.5% but the number of midwives rose by 4.5%.

Bolton: Canal repair under threat

Improvements to the local canal network are in jeopardy because of cuts to Government funding - reports The Bolton News.

Regeneration work on the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is described as being at risk as British Waterways prepares for a £35 million shortfall in Whitehall funding by 2011.

A report from the Parliamentary Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee voices "extreme concern" about the scaling back of public funding to British Waterways, which is responsible for 2,200 miles of rivers and canals nationwide.

John Fletcher, chairman of both the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Society and the International Waterways Association, said: "This report identifies the elements that government needs to address - one of which is the threat to waterway regeneration by funding cuts.

"Money is tight but these canals fulfil many government objectives such as educations, green routes, healthy living and jobs.

"The Manchester, Bury and Bolton Canal has always depended on third-party funding but British Waterways needs the cushion of funding which Defra is depriving it of.

"I look forward to working with Defra and British Waterways to work out a new architecture of funding to resolve current problems."

Mr Fletcher will meet with senior civil servants later this week.

British Waterways is already under pressure after shortfalls forced it to scrap £5.6 million of planned refurbishment work on stretches including the Ribble Link, which joins the Lancaster and Leeds-Liverpool canals via the River Douglas.

Waterways Minister Jonathan Shaw said: "We will now work with British Waterways closely in carefully considering the committee's recommendations, but I can say that I am committed to ensuring there is good communication and effective working relationships between Defra ministers and officials at British Waterways."

The committee called for the National Audit Office to review conflicting claims about the state of British Waterways' finances.

Derby: Alarm as care home faces closure

Fears have been raised that Derbyshire care homes could come under pressure after an authority admitted it was looking at plans to shut one - reports the BBC.

Derby City Council has announced a consultation period over the future of Bramble Brook in Mickleover.

The council said residential care had become less popular in recent years and it had 80 vacancies across the city.

Age Concern said greater emphasis on home care meant many care homes were facing a financial squeeze.

There are about 40 residents and 32 staff at Bramble Brook, which has been selected as it provides no specialist care.

The families of those at Bramble Brook said the idea of being moved away from friends and familiar surroundings was causing distress.

Katy Pugh, chief executive of Age Concern in Derby, said: "I think finances are very tight and many of the new strategies and agendas mean money will have to be redistributed, so it is possible there will be more closures."

She added: "Experience has told us that older people facing this sort of situation suffer greatly.

"They become very anxious and it is more likely their health will suffer and certainly these changes are much harder to cope with at that time of life."

A&E decision halts cancer centre

Plans for new health services in Ayrshire have been put on hold in order to retain an accident and emergency unit, BBC Scotland reports.

Last month, Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon MSP overturned her predecessor's decision to close the units at Ayr Hospital and Monklands in Lanarkshire.

But due to shortfalls of public funds, this means that a new cancer centre based at Ayr is among the proposed services being suspended.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran had also planned community casualty units at Girvan, Cumnock and Irvine.

The decision to keep Ayr and Monklands A&E units open was one of the first announcements made by Ms Sturgeon when she became health secretary.

Gavin Tate, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, said he was worried that health services in Ayrshire and Arran would suffer.

"The problem will be that the health board may well, if required to maintain two full A&E departments, be unable to fulfil the other extensive plans for the improvement in cancer services, eye services, local community casualty units and other significant developments." said Mr Tate.

While responsibility for Scotland's health service has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and the allocation of funds is no longer decided in Whitehall, Westminster MPs for Ayr do still bear responsibility for how much public money is available to the Scottish Executive.

Clearly if planned NHS improvements are having to be abandoned to keep basic A&E services open in Ayr, then local MPs who vote to waste vast sums of public money by gifting it to the audit-failing EU will get the blame for that money not being available to improve local health services instead.

Pain relief drug ruled too costly for the NHS

Thousands of arthritis sufferers will be denied treatment with proven benefits by a decision not to pay for a new drug, reports The Times today.

In another example of how the extra £2.5bn a year that the government has unjustifiably pledged to the EU could be used to help those who need it most - rather than handed to an organisation that has failed its audit for twelve years in a row - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is to recommend that the new drug Abtacept (Orencia) does not represent "value for money".

Yet the drug has been shown to improve dramatically the severest symptoms of arthritis in almost half of patients.

Its manufacturer, Bristol Myers Squibb, estimated in its application to NICE that around 3,500 patients a year would benefit. But other studies show that around 12,000 patients could potentially benefit.

Published data shows that in trials Abatacept produced a 50% reduction in symptoms in about 40% of the patients who used it in conjunction with an older drug, methotrexate.

Though the cost would be about £9,300 a year on average, all of those treated would be sufferers who had already been treated unsuccessfully with anti-TNF drugs, which are equally expensive.

Ailsa Bosworth, chief executive of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society said, “This is extremely bad news for people living with severe rheumatoid arthritis.

“Denying patients the option of Abatacept leaves some of them with the unacceptable choices of being put back on to treatments they have already failed on, palliative care or taking large doses of steroids, which have unacceptable side-effects over the long term.”

A NICE spokesman said: “Having examined cost-effectiveness analyses on the drug against a range of comparators, the committee concluded that Abatacept could not be considered a cost-effective use of NHS resources.”

The problems of balancing drug costs against benefits have led a growing number of patients who are denied treatments to resort to legal action.

Undoubtedly, any MPs who approve this blatant waste of public money by voting in favour of the European Communities (Finance) Bill when it comes before Parliament in the next session will forfeit any claim to be supporting the development of a modern, effective health service.

UK 'fails child cancer patients'

Survival rates for child cancer are worse in the UK than on mainland Europe, the BBC reports today, highlighting that more investment is required to improve treatment.

A study in Lancet Oncology highlighted the fact that diagnosis for some types of cancer is three times more likely in Germany than the UK.

The paper highlighted trials carried out on Wilm's tumour - a common childhood tumour - in Germany.

It showed that, between 1994 and 2001, 27.4% of patients had a cancer that was first identified during a visit to a health professional for an unrelated problem, or by routine surveillance.

By comparison, in the UK, just 11% of patients presenting to the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and 4% of patients referred to the Newcastle Hospital or the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle were identified.

Professor Alan Craft, of the University of Newcastle, said child cancer was a low priority for the NHS, and called for urgent reforms.

He recommended routine surveillance of children as standard across the UK and that health visitors needed to be more aware of the symptoms of cancer.

He also believes that children in the UK have been receiving a different treatment protocol from those in Europe, possibly involving first-line treatment or less-intensive treatment during relapse.

Professor Craft said: "Waiting lists and hospital beds keep chief executives awake at night, but I don't think the health of children does."