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The NHS have been trying, with great alacrity, to convince the Pharmaceutical companies of this for years Bernie.

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Sorry Kate once again it is like a post code lottery whether these drugs are available. The cost should not come into it the drugs should be available!!!

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hat is what has happened since Blackburn Infirmary was closed down everyone has to go to the old Queens Park Which is now called Blackburn Royal my mother is 94 and i thathave to take her and not long ago had to get out of bed at 3am in the morning to go and fetch her home it is disgusting that they didnt let me know she had even been admitted late that night good job she lives in sheltered and she could pull the cord to inform someone she was ill its terrible what they do here now with the old people they think you should be dead i think not alive at age hope she soon gets better

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Presume yer mother-in-law could afford a taxi Royboy. Most taxi drivers are extremely caring and considerate of their fares, and would have escorted your relative to the door. The NHS is not a taxi service for the 100's of patients they see every day ... obviously, she was not an emergency.

Yes, 'lucky' :rolleyes: your daughter was on hand to take her .. speaks volumes.

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the defence of this new abomination speaks volumes to me about the defenders.:(

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Kate patient transport is available during the day regardless of whether you can afford taxis or not. If non-urgent appointments are made at silly hours patient transport should still be available!!!!

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Cancer drugs are being made more readily available to people if they are proven to be affective.

If you can afford the first batch of the drugs and they prove affective the NHS will now cover the following drugs rather than the previous policy where if you paid for drugs privately you would forfeit your access to NHS drugs.

The NHS doesn't have endless amounts of money. It is being abused by those who waste doctors time with every single little sniffle and bug. People waste drugs by continuing with prescriptions that they don't really need any longer. One brilliant example would be sleeping tablets. I'm an insomnia sufferer, but I can cope without drugging myself, I can try free alternatives or cheaper ones such as drinking herbal tea or listening to calming music and so on. I'm not saying everything has an alternative or to never go to the doctors, but so many people waste time or use the NHS for the wrong things.

People are fighting each other for cancer drugs that they don't even need at this moment in time and will hopefully never need. We're fighting over money in effect. People who can afford to will hopefully free up NHS funding by paying for their own health care, but let's vote on who will be the first to say it isn't fair that someone can afford to do that. Better we all fight over the NHS budget than let someone use private resources instead right?

We've started sending people in need of major surgery abroad to try and free up our waiting lists. Those foreigners we hate being in our country can just work at home now and get our money. Neither way will stop us complaining though no matter how many lives it saves. Not when it's pumping our money into a foreign economy.

People are bitter over money in Accrington and resources in general. We aren't saying we want access for everyone, we're saying we want the reassurance that if we are to fall ill, we'll be given the drugs without question of cost or a waiting list. Sadly we can't really do that. We don't have the money or the materials available to create such a system, so we just have to make the most out of what we have. No matter how hard we try, nobody is ever going to have 100% assurance that they will survive cancer or even be given the best possible drugs to try and make that a certainty. Even people with access to the best drugs still die, but that isn't what we really want to think about is it?

I know many people that have died of cancer in some form, people that I have loved greatly. If I believed that drugs could be made available to everyone then I would be the first to say it must happen, just for my selfishness more than wanting to save the world. I didn't want to lose my best friend to Ewing's Sarcoma or my history teacher to skin cancer, I didn't want to lose my non-smoking uncle to lung cancer or comfort my friend when he lost he dad to cancer after believing he was cured. I'd fight for the drugs for all of those people if I thought they could be provided for every cancer sufferer.

I don't want to say that we don't have the money to save lives, but sadly that is the case. I can help by not wasting the time of my doctor and not getting prescriptions I don't really need. What can you do?

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Unfortunately, it does Bernie and only so much money in the pot to buy these expensive drugs, (unless we are all willing to put more money into the pot with our N.I.) and who is to say which drug is more important than the next. It's the drug companies that will not back down on what they charge health services, as need the profit for further research, etc.

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Marian, I too hope your mum gets better soon.
Three score years and ten seem's to be the cut off point, I will be there in June.
The Government use the NHS as politcal tool. They say that money has been pumped in there 'Year on Year'...sounds good to the ones who are prepared to listen.
If I buy something I will ask 'What is the bottom line, not what the discount is'
Are we of the age to believe what polititions say?
I know I've spelt spin merchant's wrong, but not bothered really.
The country is in a mess.....as is the NHS.
My Daughter is a nursing sister and I sympathise with her and her dedicated friends.

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So the women who need Herceptin a drug known to alleviate the affects of breast cancer should be made to go without it or even pay for it theirselves?? I can't believe we are saying that is right. What is this country coming to when some really believe that drugs known to work against cancer are being denied. I hope and pray none of us ever finds ourself in the position of needing the drugs and being denied them!!!

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Come on Kate...82 and blind I consider that needy....The point was why make an appointment at that time of night for a lady who has difficulties seeing, and walking I might add, two knee operations in the bag....The time of the appointment was questioned by my wife and myself but it made no difference.
Taxi drivers in the main are dedicated men and women but really that is not their responsibilty.

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Who post that refering to Bernie?

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Never mind i am already there but much fitter than half of these kids that are around at
the moment and can hold my head up high and fight my corner i have paid all my taxes and national insurance stamps thats more than this lot do i dont stand any messing from anyone

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I said that Marian and I got a visit from the Bogeyman.
Watch this space :p

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Well no, I'm not saying that as that is a drug that has already been proven effective, though not everyone responds to cancer treatment so that is taken into account.

We receive so much more than a lot of people in the world but we don't have the best health care system. I can only hope that we use the OMC through the EU to take note of better health care systems in existence and try to improve the basic foundation of the NHS. I know anti-EU people will mock this and highlight that OMC is not binding in any way, but I believe that our government would choose to do the most efficient things to prolong lives, save lives and avoid our people getting ill in the first place. It isn't fixed with the wave of a magic wand though and advanced cancer drugs don't make themselves.