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.timesonline.co.uk/…

Health service dentists have been forced to go on holiday or spend time on the golf course this month despite millions of patients being denied dental care.

Many have fulfilled their annual work quotas allotted by the National Health Service and have been turning patients away because they are not paid to do extra work. This is despite the fact that more than 7m people in Britain are unable to find an NHS dentist.

Patients have been told they must either pay privately or return in April when the new work year begins. People suffering from toothache have been advised to go to hospital.

Areas affected include Merseyside, Derbyshire, Birmingham and East Sussex. Eddie Crouch, secretary of the Birmingham local dental committee, estimates that up to a third of dentists in the West Midlands have run out of work or have had to reduce the number of NHS patients they treat. “Patients in pain have had to shop around to find a dentist that has not used up their quota,” he said.

The British Dental Association fears that other dentists have been unable to meet their quotas and will be forced to pay back thousands of pounds to the NHS.

The health department says dentists should have managed their workload throughout the year.

I love when the “rights” of the people conflict with the “rights” of the workers. I thought these socialist single payer systems were supposed to get rid of the money issue so that those who really care could run things without worry. That everyone would be cared for without question. No turning people away by greedy, money grubbing, capitalist doctors. Am I to assume these dentists care for their paycheck more than their patients? Too bad the British people are taxed so much to pay for the NHS otherwise they would have no problem just going to a private dentist. I guess they are going to have to schedule their toothaches for when the dentists can work.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

How cute. Socialized National Health Service telling people who pay taxes to provide the service they can’t get service.

Further down in the article it talks about the European Commission considering a proposal to extend the upcoming ban on smoking in enclosed public places to cover doorways.

Officials have been studying the Canadian province of Quebec, where smoking is banned within nine metres of the doorway into any healthcare-related building, school or social services building.

The experiment is thought to have shown positive health benefits.

What the hell does that mean?!