Cancer drugs: 'patients face postcode lottery'

Cancer patients are facing a "postcode lottery" with some primary care trusts spending more than twice as much as others on prescription cancer drugs, the Tories claimed today.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said that figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that on average PCT's in England spent £390.17 per patient.

But within that total there were sharp differences with the highest spending PCT, Mid Essex, paying out £594.55 per patient, compared to the £150.51 per patient paid by the lowest spender, Barnsley.

Even if the two most extreme results are discounted to allow for any statistical anomalies, spending ranges from £221.28 in South Tyneside to £506.82 in Norfolk.

The data also showed wide discrepancies from region-to-region in spending on controversial high cost new cancer drugs.

The West Midlands spent just £46 per 100 chemotherapy patients on Avastin, compared to £8,732 in London and an average of £1,748 for England as a whole.

When it came to Herceptin, spending per 100 chemotherapy patients ranged from £31,717 in the East of England to £101,597 in the North East, against an English average of £68,753.

Mr Lansley said it was clear that the clinical treatment of patients in different parts of the country was being dictated by financial considerations.

"It is clear that in different parts of the country radically different approaches are being taken on whether patients should be given access to these new drugs," he said.

"These huge variations are not justified by the clinical evidence, which worryingly means that they must therefore be being dictated by financial considerations.

"Last year cancer drug spending stalled even as patients went without the latest medicines or were made to pay for them. This is a year when NHS budgets provided by taxpayers rose by 9%. Where has all the money gone?"