NHS winter crisis looms

They really should not be approving things that cost a fortune but don't do much good

Slightly distorting the picture there. These drugs often DO do a great deal of good, but they are simply life prolongers not cures.

However if you are living to see a grandchild born or your son or daughter married, that extra six months or so can mean so very much!

I agree with your post JessM (although I would possibly donate if I knew someone personally). However, if I thought a drug had value but was still being denied I would want to help a patient fight to get it.

Some drugs and treatments are extremely expensive; they cost a lot to research and do go through extensive clinical trials. When they come off licence they can be produced more cheaply, of course, because other drugs firms have not had to spend out on all the research.
The cost of a new drug and its efficacy should be set against the cost of that patient having other treatments and perhaps spending a lot of time in hospital.

They really should not be approving things that cost a fortune but don't do much good.

That is right and they have to decide, but NICE have sometimes had a fight on their hands by not approving certain drugs that have been proven, in clinical trials, to prolong life and, if not cure, certainly contain certain diseases and some patients have enjoyed many more years of life and, as Mair says, seen DC graduate, marry, DGC born.

I have heard them referred to as the National Institute for Curtailing Expenses. Certainly 'Health and Care Excellence' could be described as a misnomer in some instances because they have denied Health and Care Excellence to some patients.

'I'm extremely pleased, relieved, exasperated, delighted, anxious, tearful but most of all heart wrenchingly happy to inform you all that because of all your hard work, love, tears, strength, sheer determination and people power from not only here but across the country, across the globe in fact.... we - YOU - have been able to put a SUBSTANTIAL deposit down on my 2nd transplant... Unfortunately due to reasons far beyond anything we or I could control the transplant WILL be done at Kings (which I'm so pleased about as there was a point where I thought this wasn't going to happen at all....) BUT - it is under PRIVATE care and not the NHS! This did cause problems, headaches, heartaches and wasn't expected but the Private International Team have tried to help us resolve these issues and in light of the fundraising events that have just happened and are about to happen, WILL ENSURE the transplant WILL be able to be PAID for in FULL and hopefully leave us with enough to cover our expenses while I'm in there for the month and some of my recovery.......

THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE....
THIS IS WHAT THE POWER OF LOVE CAN DO

THE 20th FEBRUARY ADMISSION
21st FEBRUARY START CHEMO
AND 1ST MARCH FOR TRANSPLANT!
(Yes these are my provisional dates to start to help me save my life and for me to show along with a few lucky others that 2nd transplants do work! We are worth it!)

From someone to whom I have donated.
She was given one stem cell transplant, but the second was refused. She has two young children. It would cost more than the cost of a stemcell transplant to look after those children if their mother dies.

'And this situation is one not just Sasha is now faced with - all those in need of a second transplant will be effected.

Sasha's friends and family have all been working hard fundraising to try and help ease the pressure but we have such a small amount of time to raise the cash. Sasha has only a 20% survival rate in the next 24 months if she does not have the second transplant.

The NHS say they have made this decision to save money, but only 11 people require this treatment each year and to cover this only costs the NHS £600,000 over a 3 year period. It is such a small amount of money. These little cuts are now destroying families lives.'

167,000 people have signed a petition, thinking this is unfair.

Good post Jalima 12.32

It's really sad.
My son had an autologous stem cell transplant. It's a hugely aggressive treatment involving giving so much heavy duty chemo that they literally have no immune system for several weeks. It's very dangerous and hard to cope with even for a young man in his 30s.
(A stem cell transplant from a donor is even more hazardous.)
When he went for his follow up visit his summary was "If it hasn't worked I'm f***ed" - i.e. you only get one chance at this.
I can understand why oncologists might judge that if it has not worked once, it's not going to work a second time, and will likely kill the patient in the process.
A friend of mine died when her leukaemia came back. She had the max amount of chemo because she was very determined. However she kept on getting infection after infection, stopping the treatment each time and that killed her.
Sometimes it is not just the cost
I don't think it fair to blame NICE. It's the government that is underfunding the NHS and launching other attacks on it, such as picking a fight with doctors, bashing a spurious 24/7 drum and demoralising GPs, removing nursing bursaries, cutting back on beds and outsourcing chunks of it to profit making companies.
But even if you increased taxes for everyone to pay for a service that was world class in all departments, it would still not be a bottomless money pit for everything the pharmaceutical companies came up with.

Effect of Brexit on EU nurses in UK.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38817425?foo=bar&

Wow, Jess, worth watching that. I always watch Inside Out.

Big jump in numbers of people waiting too long for treatment like hip and knee replacements
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38853709

Always amazes me that they can call hip and knee operations elective surgery. Who chooses to have one? You have one because it's necessary.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/former-tory-government-health-adviser-nick-seddon-us-firm-optum-nhs-privatisation-david-cameron-a7561696.html

The State of the NHS being discussed on Victoria Derbyshire now.

There aren't enough doctors and nurses to cope now. Doctors and nurses talking about how dangerous the NHS is now. People not wanting to train as nurses already.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/06/the-guardian-view-on-the-nhs-more-cash-less-dog-whistling-needed

The distraction of the foreign patients issue is disgraceful. Did you see the interview with a finance director of a hospital in an ordinary English town? She reckoned she'd collected all the money owing bar about £17k year.
They are talking about non-urgent treatment. So, in the main, this is when people have been to a GP, waited for a hospital appointment (maybe for months) and then waited again for treatments. Also people that don't come from a country with a reciprocal agreements, don't have health insurance, and do have the opportunity to sit around for months waiting for hospital treatment. Hmm

Did anyone see Hospital last week which was about this particular issue? A Nigerian women en route back to Nigeria via Heathrow went into labour. She was admitted to an NHS hospital where she gave birth to very premature quads. One died at birth and the mother nearly did too.

The remaining three babies were in intensive care. It was weeks before the mother could be discharged into the care of a charity, and sadly another baby died. The remaining two are still in intensive care incubators and the final bill is likely to be about £300,000.

This woman has no chance of paying that. She wasn't a 'health tourist'. She didn't plan to go into labour three months early in a strange country.

Oh is that what happened. Poor woman.
And this week's "announcement" only refers to non-urgent care of course.

Yes, that's what happened, but she still gets lumped in with those who will not pay. She was amazing, thanking everyone. When she left hospital before the babies, she had nowhere to go and was helped by a charity.

Can anyone explain why Hunt is in the USA talking to healthcare companies?

evolvepolitics.com/hunt-secretively-visits-us-to-meet-pharma-companies-gives-speech-at-conference-sponsored-by-us-healthcare-giants/

Why is he not over here talking to our NHSE, sorting out the problems?

This woman has no chance of paying that. She wasn't a 'health tourist'. She didn't plan to go into labour three months early in a strange country

On the contrary that was EXACTLY what she planned:

Priscilla had been warned it would be unsafe to have quadruplets in her native Nigeria
She flew to the US, but was turned away and was on route back to Nigeria when she went into labour

Why did she even come via Heathrow? She could have taken a direct flight. Clearly after not getting her first choice (and the US citizenship that birth in America would have given her children) she opted for Britain as second best.

Who gets on a plane to fly across the Atlantic when six months pregnant with quins? I'll tell you who, a health tourist!

And I dont blame her for trying it on, smart woman, but I do blame our authorities for accepting a flight with such a heavily pregnant woman on it.

Tory MP Peter Bone said: “Someone coming to this country should be obliged to get travel insurance, so their health care is covered.

“Why should taxpayers be funding foreign nationals to have NHS treatment at vast expense?”

British docs must provide emergency medical care regardless of a patient’s nationality or ability to pay

In December, The Sun revealed the number of health tourists having babies on the NHS doubled in two years to more than 2,100

Getting bored with this health tourism red herring. It's this second time this winter this theme has been trumpeted from the rooftops to distract the public from the real issues with the NHS. Tiny amount of beds and money involved compared to the big NHS picture.
After pressuring hospitals to "increase bed occupancy" and cutting the money to the councils for providing "social care". And decades of eroding the district nursing service. And getting rid of geriatric hospitals. There are far too many people in badly needed general hospital beds, who could be cared for more cheaply elsewhere. Some of them need "social care" and some need nursing care. These are people who want to go home.
Private nursing homes are the other option and they are also struggling to cope with the increasing nursing needs of their customers.
All this against a background of starving the NHS of the additional money it needs to cope with increasing numbers of frail sick people,

I presume you watched it, Mair, to know so much about the case.
She went to America because that was where her sister was. She was on her way back to Nigeria. She didn't plan to have her children three months early in the UK.
You're all heart.

Health tourism is a dead cat.
It costs 1% of the NHS budget. Much of that 1% they get back.
It's to divert your attention from the real underfunding crisis in the NHSE.
It's working in your case, Mair.

"Peter Bone advocates the privatisation of the NHS, having stated that the service would not look out of place in Stalinist Russia."

Not someone I would think of quoting on the NHS. Here's a few others not to quote.

tompride.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/leading-members-of-brexit-campaign-call-for-privatisation-of-the-nhs-and-much-worse/

Now the government is talking of removing bursaries from nurses in training, while they are funding teachers with bursaries for specialist subjects.

Students in teaching and nursing do a lot of hands on training and do much practical work on the wards as an extra pair of hands. Closing down these bursaries will not encourage people to apply.

www.nursingtimes.net/news/education/student-bursary-removal-to-go-ahead-next-year-dh-confirms/7009437.

Did anyone watch the BBC coverage of Blackburn A&E and hospital, shown on news at ten over the reports past two nights. The CEO took the unusual step of allowing filming because of his fears that the hospital is failing its patients and the staff are under huge stress.
One issue is that A&E departments in nearby towns were closed, something that is happening everywhere, leaving patients travelling to hospitals that are already close to breaking point.

One thing that stood out to me is that all the people interviewed were local, didn't see a 'health tourist' at all. Blackburn has a large Pakistani Muslim community, like many other northern former cotton mill towns. The majority of patients seemed to be white British. The occasional dark face was a nurse or doctor, most of them British born it seemed. I mention this only because of the constant comments here, blaming immigration/health tourism for the pressure on our hospitals and health service.
Well done that CEO, the medical staff, the patients and the BBC for exposing the truth. The government may just have to take notice and acknowledge its own policies are the underlying problem. An ageing population hasn't simply happened. The need to provide excellent social care, working alongside the NHS has been a key issue since I started in social work in the 1970's. Attempts to improve that situation have been undermined by privatising social care. No surprise that many private companies who took the place of local authority services are now saying they can't make a profit and are closing or reducing their 15 minute visits even further.