NICE have today decided to reject the bowel cancer drug Avastin on the grounds that it is too expensive and does not represent good value for money for the NHS.

People who are currently taking Avastin will be unaffected by today’s decision.

I have previously acted on behalf of a number of patients whose Consultant had prescribed Avastin but the PCT had refused to fund the drug. In some of those cases I have been successful in persuading the PCT to fund the drug. I now fear that PCTs will be able to use the NICE ruling to prevent seriously ill patients getting this important life prolonging treatment.

In my experience Avastin is only prescribed by doctors in the most serious cases of advanced bowel cancer, which is thankfully considered a ‘rare’ cancer. Although it has been widely reported in the press that Avastin only extends life by six weeks many doctors, patients families and myself have seen much better results when ill patients are prescribed Avastin after other treatments have stopped working.

The NICE decision is subject to appeal and no doubt campaign groups such as Bowel Cancer UK will make a strong challenge to NICE’s decision.

The Health Secretary, Andy Burnham is expected to announce today that everybody between the ages of 40 to 74 will have the legal right to a 5 yearly NHS health check which will assess their risk of heart disease, diabetes, strokes and kidney disease.

However, this is unlikely to be brought into law until 2012 and the legislation required to enforce this new right is unlikely to be passed before the next general election. It is not yet known whether the Conservatives will back the new health care MOT policy.

The Government will announce new legislation in the Queen’s speech on 18 November which will mean that if the NHS cannot provide treatment within 18 weeks the patient will have the right to receive the treatment privately at no cost to the patient.

The proposals will also include a maximum wait of 2 weeks for any patient referred to a consultant oncologist by their GP. If the NHS are unable to achieve this then the patient will be entitled to be seen privately.