SOME cancer sufferers may still be forced to turn to the private sector for life-saving drugs, Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, admitted yesterday.
She told MSPs looking at why some cancer drugs are not freely available on the NHS that "difficult decisions" sometimes had to be made. And she said there was no guarantee the NHS would always be able to provide drugs necessary for treatment.
The
Scottish Parliament's petitions committee is holding an inquiry following a campaign for free treatment by Mike Gray, who died from bowel cancer last month.
The 53-year-old from Buckie, in Moray, had been told by NHS Grampian he could not get a drug he needed, cetuximab, for free and would have to go private. He ended up paying £1,700 a week to get it.
After an appeal and embarrassing publicity, the health authority relented – but after Mr Gray's death, it admitted "quite an awful error" had been made in the way it had dealt with the patient.
Ms Sturgeon yesterday answered questions on whether cases such as Mr Gray's could be avoided in the future.
But her responses provided little hope for many cancer sufferers who face the same struggle as Mr Gray.
The minister said similar problems were likely to surface again and that it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
She also insisted that specialists had to be allowed the freedom to make the life and death decisions.
"I think it is important to recognise that difficult decisions will always have to be made,'' she said. "It would be dishonest of me as an MSP to say to the public at large that these difficult decisions will not be confronted by other individuals in the future."
Ms Sturgeon added that NHS Grampian would "freely admit" there had been shortcomings in the way Mr Gray had been treated.
She said: "The decision-making process should rest with experts, so that any sufferer who disagrees can have confidence in the way it was reached."
However, she sent her condolences to the family and friends of Mr Gray and said: "His dignity and perseverance in pursuing his petition I think should be a lesson to all of us."
Margaret Curran, Labour's shadow health secretary, pointed out that Ms Sturgeon had failed to come up with a plan to help cancer patients.
"It appears that, in this case, the only person not to have learned any lessons in Nicola Sturgeon," she said.
"Rather than lay out how she might move her government to supporting cancer sufferers, she instead says it's inevitable that people will continue to pay for cancer drugs.
"The Scottish Government should be striving to do better in this area of care."
Nanette Milne, a former NHS doctor and a Conservative member of the petitions committee, said: "I thought Ms Sturgeon was sympathetic and I think the committee impressed on her the need to look at the guidance on drugs, which she said she would do."
The full article contains 508 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
