The Wardman Wire

The story about the NHS Co-payments policy - that you lose the opportunity for NHS treatment once you pay for extra drugs privately - is all over the BBC News (used to be News 24 and I keep forgetting the name) Sunday Papers review this morning.

This story is in The Times (for about the 8th time in a fortnight) being driven by certain Doctors with private practices and (obviously) a good PR consultant.

They have concerned the accounts of patients such as Colette Mills, Debbie Hirst, Jack Hose, Linda O’Boyle and - this morning - John Burrell, Sandra Baker.

This has been covered well by Ministry of Truth (one, two, get a pot of tea), the Devil, Prodicus and John Redwood in their different styles and from their different viewpoints.

Read the Times story here.

The crucial two points are best raised by Unity at Ministry of Truth:

• Some of the drugs being highlighted as part of this campaign are not in fact clinically proven to be effective; so it is not just a matter of unwillingness to spend money - there are also regulatory issues involved.
• The bodies and individuals campaigning for “reform” appear to have inherent conflicts of interest in this campaign.

Of course, the use of unproven (in the UK) drugs should not be introduced purely as part of an emotionally driven campaign about co-payments, since unapproved drugs have the potential to absorb NHS care-resources without giving a real benefit.

My position is that co-payments for drugs that are approved and being refused for purely financial reasons seem to be a good idea, but that (unlike this campaign) we must not confuse financial questions with drug approval questions.

There is also a separate question as to whether the UK drug approval processes are quick enough; I do not address that here.