Trust challenges cancer figures

The Department of Health's public expenditure memorandum to the House of commons health select committee, published this month, shows Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust allocates just £5,182 a year to each cancer patient.

Topping the spending table with three times that amount - £17,028 per year - is Nottingham City PCT. But even the national average is more than £3,000 higher than Oxfordshire's spending, at £8,437.

The figures say Oxfordshire PCT allocated £31.98m to treat 6,172 patients in 2006-7.

Nottingham City PCT allocated £36,235,000 for 2,128 patients.

But Oxfordshire PCT spokesman Sarah Bergin said: "The PCT is challenging the accuracy of the figures on cancer spend included in the memorandum.

"It appears there has been a mix-up with our figures. Our expenditure on cancer is in fact £42,538,000 in 2006-7, which equates to £6,892 per cancer patient.

"Cancer patients in Oxfordshire have good survival rates and these have been improving.

"Mortality rates for cancer are lower than those PCTs that appear to spend more per head.

"Some PCTs may be under-recording numbers of cancer patients in their practices and this appears to be demonstrated in the data published for some of the higher-spending PCTs, leading to a wider range of spending on cancer patients than is in fact the case.

"Oxfordshire PCT wants to reassure residents that the cancer care provided by local hospitals is of a high standard."

Health experts say the so-called 'postcode lottery' of cancer drugs could mean patients in lower-spending areas having up to 20 per cent less chance of beating cancer than those which spend more.

Kidney cancer sufferer Stephen Dallison, 33, of Iffley Road, Oxford, believes the drug Sunitinib would give him extra months or even years of life. But he has twice been refused the £2,500-a-month treatment by Oxfordshire PCT.

The 33-year-old scientist, who works at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot, said: "The fact there's any major difference in spending at all between areas of the country is astounding.

"But I'm surprised that Oxfordshire is the lowest - I would think it is one of the wealthiest parts of the country.

"Perhaps this is because because the area covers more people, but at the same time, that doesn't mean these people should be penalised."

Mr Dallison is one of an estimated 15 patients a year from the county who doctors feel would benefit from using Sunitinib He said: "Obviously, it's very frustrating if you're one of those people in the situation where there's a drug you can have, but it's denied you - it's the most frustrating thing in the world."

Cancer Research UK spends nearly £15m in Oxford each year on research and its clinical centre at the Churchill Hospital is one of the leading research units in the UK.

Richard Davidson, the charity's director of policy and public affairs, said: "We would like to reassure people living in Oxfordshire that overall spend does not indicate treatment quality or access to individual drugs.

"In addition, these figures do not take into account the type of cancer people in each region have, how long patients spend in hospital and the age of the population - all factors that would influence the amount an NHS trust needs to spend on cancer services."

Case study

JANE Winter was one of the first women in Oxfordshire to take the breast cancer drug Herceptin - but she had to pay for it herself.

The 47-year-old mother-of-two, from Shillingford, was diagnosed with cancer in 2004.

Herceptin was not licensed for use in the UK at the time and the PCT would not fund the £25,471 treatment.

Mrs Winter raised about half the the money herself and the rest through health insurance.

She said: "I think it's absolutely tragic that people cannot have these drugs, and the problem is only going to get worse as more and more drugs come on to the market.

"It's very scary here in Oxfordshire, because most people can't afford to pay. Doctors are trying their best but they can't use the drugs they know will make a real difference to people's lives."

In 2002, Herceptin was being given to 90 per cent of early-stage Her2-positive breast cancer sufferers in some areas of England, but to just ten per cent in others.

Following guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, Oxfordshire PCT pays for the drug for patients with the cancer after appropriate treatment, such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.