Don’t ever say that governments can’t move
quickly when it suits them to do so – usually under the lash of potentially embarrassing
public opinion .
We had a marvellous example of that in
Scotland this weekend [ or , possibly even today , Monday 20th May.
]
For the past few years , as an ever wider
array of cancer addressing pharmaceuticals has come on stream , the expert
mechanisms we have for assessing the efficacy of such drugs has tested the decision
making processes of government .
In both England & Wales , and here in Scotland
, we have expert bodies charged with assessing the clinical efficacy and the ‘value
for money ‘ of new and often highly
specialised treatments . South of the Border it’s NICE; in Scotland the
Scottish Medicines Consortium . Understandably these bodies take time to consider
possible treatments – time which those suffering with later stage aggressive
cancers don’t have .
As a consequence both the UK and Scottish governments
have cut corners in order to override – or accelerate past – the procedures
they themselves have set up . In England there is a short term Cancer Drugs Fund
, here in Scotland the Cabinet Secretary for Health recently made money available to support a similar sort
of ad hoc provision .
Despite that attempt to catch-up in Scotland
it seems pretty clear that a number of medics [ reported in the media last week
] ; patients organisations and some patients think that from their point of
view Scotland lags . Last week at First Ministers Questions in Holyrood, Mr Salmond was ambushed by the
presence in the gallery of a bowel cancer patient who was considering moving to Newcastle to get appropriate
medecines for her condition on the NHS rather than paying for them herself here
in Scotland .
Following the spectacular Jolie coverage of the
week of 13th …the story runs
thus:
Wk. 13th NICE in England announce plans
to make breast cancer genetic testing available from next month
19th When this was covered in the Scottish Sunday papers ‘….no comment was available from the Scottish government…’
19th /20th Overnight: Breakthrough Brest Cancer ‘..hopes that
Scotland will follow this step in due course…’
20th May ‘ Due course ‘ turns out to be later the morning of the 20th , when the Cabinet Secretary for Health announced
‘….it had been agreed
in April to extend the testing in line with the new NICE guidelines south of
the border….’
Commendable if you’re
a cancer sufferer , but when decisions in this complex policy area appear to be
arrived at in such haste you wonder just what is going on .
