
Originally Posted by
The Times Online
CANCER patients will no longer be denied groundbreaking drugs on the National Health Service if they are too expensive, according to a flagship Tory election pledge.
The Conservatives will set up an annual £200m fund to pay for treatments banned by the government’s drug approval agency, on cost grounds, but which are widely available in Europe.
David Cameron, the Tory leader, will also ensure that patients suffering from rare cancers, many of them children, are no longer denied potentially life-saving drugs because of an NHS technicality.
Some unusual childhood cancers respond well to medicines designed for other cancers, but patients are denied the drugs on the NHS because they have not been officially approved for their specific condition.