Ministers rethink ban on private drugs in NHS

15 June 2008

The Times, Sarah-Kate Templeton, 15 June 2008

The government has been forced to rethink its policy of denying National Health Service treatment to cancer patients who pay for drugs privately to prolong their lives.

The review follows a six-month campaign by The Sunday Times highlighting the plight of cancer sufferers who have had state-funded care withdrawn in their dying months because they paid for top-up medicines.

In the face of a revolt by the medical establishment, Alan Johnson, the health secretary, will reconsider guidance issued to NHS hospitals prohibiting the practice, called co-payment.

Johnson, who previously insisted that letting patients pay for drugs would create a two-tier NHS, has disclosed that the policy is being reconsidered on his behalf by Lord Darzi in a wide-ranging review of the NHS.