http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves.

One drug for kidney cancer, routinely available through public health systems in most European countries but not to British patients, can reduce the size of tumours in 31% of patients, compared with just 6% of those prescribed the standard NHS drug.

The growing row over “co-payments” has prompted the government to reconsider the ban. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, has promised a “fundamental rethink” of the policy.

Research presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that kidney patients taking the new drug Sutent lived six months longer than those prescribed alpha interferon, the NHS treatment.

The failure of the NHS to make more effective drugs available to cancer patients has been condemned as “unethical” by leading doctors.

A woman with bowel cancer is fighting for the right to pay for a drug that could extend her life long enough for her to spend Christmas with her grandchildren.

Sheila Norrington, 59, a former NHS medical secretary from Maidstone, Kent, has been told by doctors that if she buys the drug Erbitux, which the health service will not pay for, she will lose her state-funded cancer care. Erbitux is the only drug capable of treating her advanced bowel cancer.

Norrington’s husband, Goff, 61, a former sales manager, said: “We have been told that if we pay for it ourselves we will be thrown off the NHS completely and we will need to pay for everything privately. We are devastated. This is not going to cure my wife, but if it keeps her alive a little bit longer, then we would pay for it.”

The couple say that although they could pay for a few cycles of the drug, which costs about £3,000 a month, they could not pay for all Norrington’s care, including scans, blood tests and consultations.

Goff Norrington added: “We have two young granddaughters and this could make the difference between sitting round the table with them at Christmas or not. We think it is deplorable that patients can get this drug almost anywhere in Europe but we cannot get it in the UK.”

A spokesman for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: “We are governed by Department of Health policy on this issue.”

A poll for The Sunday Times shows strong support for allowing co-payment in the National Health Service, with 89% saying that people who buy additional cancer drugs should continue to get free NHS treatment.

Only 5% think allowing co-payment would create a two-tier NHS. Until now this has been the position taken by Alan Johnson, the health secretary.

Ministers had feared that allowing co-payment would upset less well-off patients, but the YouGov poll of nearly 1,800 people shows strong backing across the social spectrum and supporters of all three main parties.

Lee over at MooreWatch.com I think said it all: “This, of course, begs the question.  If compassionate free government healthcare can’t provide, y’know, actual healthcare to patients, and they are forced to paying massive amounts of money to buy their own treatments, maybe the solution to the problem is less free government healthcare and more private sector solutions.”

When will these people realize that the government can not negate scarcity? The only thing that can bring more and better healthcare to the masses is an increase in their wealth and the only way to do that is capital accumulation through free market capitalism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

Doctors warned last night that the practice of “patient-stacking” was putting patients’ health at risk.

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that last year 43,576 patients waited longer than one hour before being let into emergency units.

More than 40,000 patients were kept in ambulances for at least an hour before entering A&E last year

Only seven out of 11 ambulance trusts responded to the survey, so the true figure could be far higher.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb is writing to health secretary Alan Johnson to demand an urgent investigation into the practice.

“This is evidence of shocking systematic failure in our emergency services,” he said.

Is it me or does 4+ hours not sound like emergency speed? The last quote of the article asks us to take into account that they have over 4 million “patient journeys undertaken by emergency vehicles in 2006/07.” So over 1% of those who take rides in a emergency vehicle spend over an hour in the parking lot because they don’t want to start the clock on the “guaranteed” 4 hours or less treatment in the ER? Over 5 hours. Two things are possibly happening. Because of the ease of access and lack of direct cost to the individual the ER is abused by people who do not actually need emergency care. As a result those who do need care are held up in line waiting for those irresponsible ER users to get through the system. As I’ve and others have said many times before when you attempt ignore the laws of economics you will fail. When you deincentivize personal responsibility you will get less of it. If I have to pay more taxes for “free” emergency care which takes hours or less taxes, higher one time costs and faster care… I’ll gladly take the latter. I don’t understand how people can be OK with replacing potentially more costly care with longer waiting periods. Is waiting months and years in a queue really worth the money supposedly saved when getting serious treatments?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2727883.ece

The historic right to smoke in public places in England was extinguished in an instant yesterday, with only a handful of rebels puffing away in defiance.

At the stroke of 6am, lighting a cigarette or cigar became illegal in confined spaces shared by England’s 50 million people. The Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, hailed the introduction of the ban - the biggest smoking ban in the world - as an important step towards a healthier population.

I wish you all the luck. I’m ignorant of British law and can’t argue as I could against the smoking bans in the United States but I hope some part of the law is on your side.