NICE's new cost curb could make it more difficult for NHS patients to get vital drugs.

Daily Mail ^ | 25 January 2014 | Jenny Hope

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Reforms to the formula used to ration expensive medicines will make it harder for NHS patients to get new life-saving drugs, warn campaigners.

The rationing body, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), plans to lower the cost threshold for new treatments and end the priority given to patients who are dying.

The reforms are a shift to a system which the Government pledged would allow patients to ‘access the drugs and treatments their doctors think they need’. It involves changes to a complex formula, known as quality adjusted life years (QALY).

And some drugs approved under ‘end of life criteria’ – ones which might extend a dying patient’s life by precious weeks or months – will also face a tough battle.

Andrew Wilson, of the Rarer Cancers Foundation, said: ‘Far from making it easier for patients to get the latest cancer drugs, these changes set the bar even higher.’

NICE chief executive Andrew Dillon said the rationing body would exceed the new £20,000 limit in exceptional circumstances.

He added: ‘We are not going to restrict further the availability of drugs. If companies offer prices that really reflect the value their treatments bring, it holds open the prospect for us to say yes more

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One comment states "Euthanasia by denial of treatment. First it's the terminally ill, what next, the over 70's who have outlived their usefulness but need medication for a number of ailments? " on its way to here.

[newfreep]

CommieCare

[MediaMole]

It’s not a “death panel,” it’s NICE, expanding access by denying access.

How very Orwellian.

[MinuteGal]

Obama has diabolical people with twisted, cunning minds busily writing these insane, death-inducing regulations.

The work of these monsters is reminiscent of scenes from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".

The introduction of ObamaCare has occasioned the introduction of death-labs in DC where little Igor-like minions churn out rules which will govern every aspect of our health and our life expectancy..

And we've seen nothing yet.....

Leni

[PlateOfShrimp]

I first read about NICE in a Mark Steyn column, and thought at the time he was being sarcastic. They really have an institute called NICE? Do these ass-clowns have any sense of irony at all?

Elwin Ransom, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

[GreyFriar]

And the British NHS is the premier system that bh0 wants his nocareact to emulate.

Here is an article on the Daily Mail yesterday that announced that the Brit’s NHS would no longer treat people with cancer after their 75th birthday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544978/Too-old-cancer-treatment-NHS-writing-patients-75.html

It just is a death panel by another name.

[zot]

It is NICE to no longer treat people with cancer after their 75th birthday. /sarc

[SparkyBass]

Have none of them read C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength?

The N.I.C.E = The National Institute for Coordinated Experimentation... a truly evil entity :)

[SparkyBass]

"Elwin Ransom, please pick up the white courtesy phone."

Precisely! :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Jeepers ... thanks for the ping!