Economics -
National Health Service 4
A
baby was stillborn after his mother was sent home
from hospital while in labour and told to
“take an asprin”. The mother had been
having contractions for 16 hours when she was
turned away. When she rushed back nearly five
hours later medics could not find the baby's
heartbeat and pronounced him dead. A spokesman
for the hospital’s NHS trust said, “A
number of pregnancies do end in stillbirth.”
A
team of six Plymouth NHS surgeons are being paid
£30,000 a week EACH to operate on their heart
patients privately in a bid to cut waiting lists.
Under a £2.47million Government blitz, surgeons
carry out the work during a week’s holiday
so it does not affect NHS duties back in Devon.
The same surgeons carry out post-op treatment
back in Plymouth on the NHS. Health bosses hope
to clear a backlog of 210 cases in the South West
over the next two years.
Often
the drugs that the NHS is refusing to give to
British patients are developed in Britain, with
British money. For example, Cisplatin, a drug for
cervical cancer developed in the UK, is available
in the rest of the developed world but not here.
Professor Gordon McVie, director of Cancer
Research UK, said: 'The frustration for us is
that we do all these trials and prove these drugs
work, and it's all paid for by the British
public. But those who pay for it don't benefit.'
The Campaign for Effective and Rational
Treatment, a drugs company funded pressure group,
estimates that to give the latest treatments
Britain needs to spend an extra £170m a year,
giving benefit to 47,000 patients.
It is not just the latest drug treatments that
the NHS is denying patients - the same is true
for radiotherapy treatments. Britain's dated
radiotherapy machines mean that many patients are
denied 3D conformal radiation therapy, which
targets the radiation far more effectively on the
cancer. Dr Dan Ash, president of the Royal
College of Radiologists, said: 'It's standard
treatment in northern Europe, but a substantial
minority of places in Britain won't offer it.'
Medical trials have shown that the best treatment
for early prostate cancer is prostate
brachitherapy - implanting radioactive material
close to the cancerous cells. It is standard
treatment in the US, but is only offered by a
handful of places here. 'Lots of people who want
it are being denied it,' said Ash.
The Government is desperately spending more money
on cancer treatments, buying new machines and
administering some of the new drugs. But doctors
warn that, when it comes to the latest
treatments, the NHS will fall further behind.
'The pace of research is speeding up - it's
developing things much faster than the NHS can
deliver,' said McVie. 'The NHS is struggling to
deliver standard treatments - it won't be able to
deliver novel ones.'
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