From 11th March, 2006:
Ann Marie Rogers is in a tough spot. She has an aggressive form of breast cancer, albeit at an early stage. It may kill her, and so she has been through surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and a legal battle which, so far, she is losing. The battle is to get the National Health Service to pay for the cancer treatment her doctor has prescribed, the drug Herceptin. Last month the High Court ruled that the local NHS trust was within its rights to refuse to pay for the drug.
These are uncomfortable cases, but they can’t be avoided in a system where the government pays for healthcare. The NHS has limited funds and someone has to decide the most effective way of spending them. The buck stops with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which regularly makes the headlines after refusing to recommend some treatment or other, most recently for brain tumours. (Nice will issue guidelines for Herceptin only after the drug is licensed for early-stage breast cancer by the European Medicines Agency.)
Continued at timharford.com.
Follow Tim Harford's tweets 