Campaigner urges Prime Minister to keep his promise over cancer drugs treatment

Former bank manager Mr Stone, 67, from Eynsham, was awarded an MBE in 2011 for campaigning on behalf of cancer sufferers.

The father-of-two’s own battle against the disease began in 2007 when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

In 2009 he won a campaign to get the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) to agree that life-extending kidney cancer drug Sunitinib should be prescribed on the NHS.

The following year he persuaded Prime Minister David Cameron – his constituency MP – to set up the £200m CDF.

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Now Mr Stone, who lost his wife Jan to cancer in 2011, said he was concerned patients across the country would be affected by the proposal, and is backing a petition calling for the decision to be reversed.

The petition at you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/keepyourpromise claims 8,000 patients face vital treatments being taken away.

It has already been signed by more than 4,200 people.

The Government is injecting more cash into the fund – up from £280m to £340m – but on Thursday, 25 drugs are being withdrawn on the grounds of cost and effectiveness.

Clive Stone with David Cameron in 2012.

Mr Stone added: “The investment in the fund is going up but NHS managers are rationing drugs by removing some from the list.

“Some patients are very concerned that the remaining drugs on the list will not cover all conditions.

“I wrote to Mr Cameron to ask him to reconsider this and I got a call back from one of his assistants.

I will write to him again.”

Mr Stone said he had been told he might, in the future, need to take the cancer drug Axitinib, and was relieved that it had not been removed.

He added: “While I thank our PM for his life-extending initiative there is still more to be done, so I am supporting a campaign asking for these cuts to be halted, asking the PM to intervene, and reminding him of his promise to cancer patients made at the last election ‘If your doctor thinks that you should have a cancer drug that will help you to live a longer and better life, you should get that drug’.”

On Sunday Mr Stone had his latest gamma-knife radio-surgery operation in Sheffield to remove five tumours from his brain.

He has now had 39 brain tumours removed, which is thought to be a record.

NHS England spokeswoman Zuleika Henderson said any patient currently receiving a drug through the CDF would continue to receive it.

She said 59 of the 84 most effective drugs would continue, creating “headroom” for new drugs to be funded for the first time.

Projected savings of the review are an estimated £100m.

Ms Henderson added: “Drugs which are the only therapy for the cancer in question will remain available through the CDF.

“If the CDF panel removes a drug for a particular indication, some patients may instead be able to receive it in another line of therapy or receive an alternative CDF-approved drug.”

Prof Peter Clark, chairman of the CDF and a practicing oncologist, added: “These are difficult decisions, but if we don’t prioritise the drugs that offer the best value, many people could miss out on promising, more effective treatments that are in the pipeline.

“No patient currently getting CDF drugs will miss out, and even for drugs not in the CDF, oncologists can apply for individual patient funding.”

Drugs being removed include Aflibercept for the second-line treatment of colorectal cancer, and Eribulin for the treatment of advanced breast cancer.

Mr Cameron said: “I am proud that it was this Government that introduced the CDF, which has helped more than 60,000 patients to receive life-saving treatments.

“At a time when medicines are rapidly developing, we want to ensure that patients continue to have access to the best drugs. That is the purpose of the CDF review.”