Here we go (sooner rather than later) again.

I can understand people of whatever age wanting to hang on a bit longer but balancing the cost of some of these drugs (hundreds of thousands) against what that money could do for someone with their life ahead of them then I think I'd say no to them and give in gracefully! BUT we none of us will know until we reach that point how we'd react!

At what age will they define elderly? This year 80 but in a few years need more money and bring it down to 75. Sorry but this is a bad idea.

I'm 57 but have already said to my family that I will not extend my life if I have no quality of life.

While I do support Dignity in dying, being able to decide if I am terminal or in long term pain I do wonder if a story read many many years ago & made into a film then tv series will be implemented before long? Does anyone else remember Logans Run? Hand goes black walk into a cubicle & 'poof' gone at age thirty?

Some interesting points from Gransnetters here. I am all for serious national discussions about
A) Dying with dignity
B) The cost of drugs and the role of the pharmaceutical industry
C) properly funding our wonderful NHS.
However, This Tory MP is well known in Wales for making controversial statements with no real desire for sensible debate. As a mediocre MP with no chance of promotion he is always desperate for headlines and press coverage (just google him to see the idiotic things he’s come out with!).
A shame, because these important issues deserve more than just boosting an MP’s ego.

There should be no age cut off limit for any type of medical treatment .
What about the funding of IVF when conceiving is purposely delayed .

Of course, the other side of the question is - why are these medicines so expensive?
Has anyone stopped to think whether these so expensive drugs, often pure chemicals, might have a cheaper plant based alternative?
Are we so used to buying our medicines from the large pharmaceutical companies that we don't even consider cheaper alternatives? Companies that are in the business of making money for themselves and their shareholders, patients are a secondary consideration.
I am of the opinion that a 1p rise in NI would be useful - IF it was used for the benefit of patients and staff, not funding middle management and higher level staff.
And personally, I would not want my life extended for 3-6 months at exorbitant cost, 3-6 years, may be a different matter.

I never understand this come and see them 'one last time' Who is this for? The patient or the visitor? I always imagine such a 'final' get together as being so fraught with emotion to render them quite awful. When I revealed my plan to have no formal funeral it was suggested I'd be depriving many people of the opportunity to say goodbye. Since the date of my departure is currently unknown, I've asked that these people just keep saying hello whilst I'm still around.

It a difficult scenario and really all cases need to be looked at individually. Personally, I wouldn't want to drag out my existent for a matter of weeks or months if I was dying of something terminal anyway and put all that extra strain on my family. If I could have a few more good years that is different.

It's not just older people who might not receive life extending drugs. As we have seen recently in the news, where babies have been kept alive when they had no chance either and that money could have been spent on other life saving/improving treatments.

Neither do I want the NHS money to be spent on people coming from abroad to get free treatment or on people having unnecessary cosmetic operations or on people abusing the system in other ways. There is a finite pot of money but it seems that people who access the NHS want and expect an infinite number of treatments.

granny23
I have been one of the 'fortunate' in life and will not bore with details.Now in my twilight years, can't get around as much as I would like,waiting for surgery to improve my mobility, medication for other problems DH passed away several years ago, family other sideof the world, there are times I have thoughts of ' I don't want to wake up to another day of this 'existence'. It is not a life.. I cannot speak for others but I would not want my life extended, having reached the age I am now, if it could only be achieved by medical intervention.

Although I am in quite a lot of pain from arthritis and cannot get about much I still enjoy life. I feel I can give advice to younger people on many subjects. For instance my home help knew nothing about gardening but now she has the bug and is very keen. The same with cooking. It might be different if I had mental problems. Life is sweet even at 95.

Has anyone stopped to think whether these so expensive drugs, often pure chemicals, might have a cheaper plant based alternative? Are we so used to buying our medicines from the large pharmaceutical companies that we don't even consider cheaper alternatives
jayelld which particular ‘plant-based alternatives’ did you have in mind?
Some drugs are based on compounds found in plants, but the reason new pharmaceutical drugs are very expensive is because of the costs of the research and development and the rigorous testing that has to be done before a new drug can be marketed. For every new wonder drug that the NHS buys on our behalf, the companies will have spent £millions on other drugs which have proved ineffective or have had undesirable side effects.
Before you start knocking these companies, just think how many people’s lives have been saved, or their final months made more comfortable, by all the advances there have been over the last 50 years.
‘Plant-based alternatives’ that are cheap because they haven’t been tested or because they don’t actually work, wouldn’t cut it for me I’m afraid.

Bijou I hope I have your frame of mind when I’m 95. Well said.

Well said janea

Perhaps if he is genuinely concerned about saving moving he and the other MP's could vote to not have any expenses paid above their salary of £77,379 per year, in tax year 2016/17 £29.3m on expenses for themselves and their staff. That was up by £1.3m from the year before

It is not only the expensive drugs that are costing the NHS money. I was shocked when I heard my neighbour say she gets paracetamol on prescription. I believe they cost the NHS more than £1 as against 20p in the supermarket. There must be many other nonprescription drugs that can be obtained in this way.

So nice to see you posting bijou - hope you’re enjoying the lovely weather.

Here in France we are sent online or by post a monthly breakdown of what each of us has cost CPAM ( health service) which is then collected from the UK to pay back CPAM .....it is a great shame that the NHS does not make enough effor to collect costs for non UK citizens in the same way as France, Spain and doubtless other countries do !!

I have had cancer three times (secondaries as well) and each time have received excellent care no expense spared. Each seance of chemo I had (three per every 2 weeks) cost more than Euro 350 per day ...three ops at more than E 30,000 a time ......I was told the last time there was nothing more to be done, only pallative care ....but that was 10 years ago and I am still here, still receiving check ups every now and then ,,I am 71 this year, and considering moving back to the UK to die (which would probably, given my age be inevitable ...also diabetic Type 1 and other things and my husband, aged 85 has Parkinson's disease and many other problems ................at the moment I have found a doctor who could take us on with all our problems if we did return and a specialist PD professer at the local hospital who run trials of new drugs, etc etc .....but my problem is, do I buy an expensive retirement flat with around £10,000 a year charges plus of course all bills, and more charges for care he may need OR do I go on a world cruise followed by a short stay in Switzerland ? I know which I would prefer and in fact am already a member of Dignitas ,,,,,,but £10,000 is quite a lot of money, and in my husband's case he would be unable to travel unassisted ...and any person accompanying him would be, under UK law, commiting a criminal offence (although a man in the UK has just been released from all charges of assisting his wife in dying by taking her to Dignitas)...I am REALLY surprised that the UK has not allowed legal euthanasia if people want it and by the number that have gone to Dignitas in the past, people clearly do ...This would obviously be difficult for the government to allow, but maybe David Davies might be the one to put it to the vote ......he is unpopular now, especially with us UK citizens living in Europe ...who are wishing he would fall on his sword and stop rattling his cage about resigning and then changing his mind ........maybe the latest outbreak of his thoughts is to bury bad news about his total lack of substance or an illusion of grandeur ...............

To my mind it is one thing to give people the right to decide whether they want medical treatment of any kind to continue or not, and to respect their wishes in this respect. But a totally different matter to pass laws about
when medical care should become unavailable.

I dislike the thought of various treatments not being made available to any group of people, whether it is the elderly, the terminally ill, premature babies or whoever.

It will always be, and should always be, a difficult decision to make if someone expresses the wish to be allowed to die NOW, whether licencing euthanasia is a good idea is debatable. My personal feeling is that it would be impossible to guard against misuse; others feel safeguards can be put in place t o prevent this.

I suppose it is too much to expect politicians to think logically: they want us to retire later, but they are not prepared to expend medical care on those that work until they are 70 or so, once they become 80!

Does this seem as ridiculous to you, as it does to me?

At the moment we have a choice, to carry on living or stop treatment and that is for all ages. I would hate to see someone making a decision for me based on age. If the government wanted to save money there are plenty of other ways and if they need any help or advice then I would only be too willing to help!

We already have one of the highest death rates in Europe including deaths of all ages and that is the result of cuts in the NHS and welfare. Plus highest rates of baby deaths. Do we really want to add to that and refuse medicines to sick elderly?

The point of medical care is to keep people alive and "as well as possible". It is not up to anyone else to judge a humans' quality of life.

When we deliberately start denying life saving support we know we are on the road to being uncivilised. We will become a third or fourth world country.

This MP enjoys publicity at all costs and has previously been controversial. IMO it beggars belief why anyone votes for him.

Bijou
Do you know what your neighbour needs them for??
Hope you never suffer from the arthritic pain a 96 year old friend of mine goes through and who would not get a nights sleep if not prescribed the maximum GP recommended dose of Paracetamol . Both she and her late husband paid into the NHS throughout their working life.Unlike many. !!!!!!!!.There needs to be a crack down on the length of time one actually needs these over the counter drugs on prescription Is it a long term issue? then yes or is one on a pension?. Sort the wheat from the chaff.

As M0nica has mentioned a heart operation is very expensive and once a person, despite their quality of life , is seen as too old!!!! this will entail untold suffering. My brother's mother in law turned down an op and lived years in misery to regret it. Finally dying of heart failure in a home.

I agree that people should be allowed to die with dignity when they are old, are getting no pleasure from life and do not want to go on living. Obviously all reasonable measures should be taken if the patient wishes to go on living, but it does not seem reasonable to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds for a few months extra life for a very frail patient.
My mother had a great fear of having a stroke, having seen friends and relatives kept alive but never recover conciousness. She actually had a DNR notice put on the front of her notes.
So often ultra-expensive treatment in ICU seems to be for the benefit of the relatives rather than the comatose dying patients.
Equally I find it unreasonable to spend a vast sum of money on keeping a baby alive in the same circumstances - maybe some of you saw the TV programme a few weeks ago where unconcious babies who were going to die were given exceptional measures to keep them alive for months.

I expect I may get some stick for these comments, but if you are irretrievably ill and comatose there seems little point in being alive.

Granny23 Crikey! I thought he was one of the nice ones! Miserable old git!

I really think this is a "sound bite". I simply don't believe it's true that there is a kind of blanket regime to dole out life-lengthening expensive drugs to old 80+ people so they can have an extra few months alive. I don't believe it happens like that at all.

I believe that the Doctors decide on each Patient's treatment according to that person's needs, taking into account everything in their life, the quality of life usually being the greatest factor. Then the doc decides what drugs are best to aid that patient to have the best quality of life. Individually!

David Davies is talking crap. He's on his way out, he knows it. He's hit the buffers with brexit (I refuse a capital "b") and now he's shouting his mouth off about anything he feels like, trying to sound clever. Silly a... (posterior region you sit on).