Allow cancer patients the right to buy life-extending drugs - Clegg (Tunbridge Wells Liberal Democrats)

Tunbridge Wells Liberal Democrats <info@twlibdems.org.uk>

Allow cancer patients the right to buy life-extending drugs - Clegg

September 10, 2008 9:11 PM

Nick Clegg said the NHS has been the guinea pig for the New Labour experiment in massive central spending and control.

Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg today called for patients to be allowed to pay for extra treatment without losing the right to free NHS care.

Speaking to the thinktank Reform in central London, Nick Clegg spoke of incidents of patients being refused NHS treatment because they had bought life-extending cancer drugs.

Outlining Liberal Democrat plans to introduce co-payments to NHS care, Nick Clegg said:

"There is a real, human conflict between the needs of the large organisation and the needs of the individual. An extra week of life may not count for much on a bureaucrat's chart. But if you're saying goodbye forever to your children? It couldn't matter more.

"We cannot continue to deny people the right to top up their care - particularly where they are following their clinician's advice - when the NHS has finite resources and cannot provide everything for everyone."

Branding Labour's experiments with NHS reform as 'a failure', Nick Clegg said:

"More than any other public service, the NHS has been the guinea pig for the New Labour experiment in massive central spending and control.

"The health service budget has tripled in eight years.

"And the health service has been the subject of more Whitehall command and control, more central targeting, and more inspection and micromanagement than this country has ever seen.

"The Department of Health has introduced literally hundreds of bills, white papers, green papers and targets.

"And for all this change, and all this money, what have we got? Productivity is stagnant. Outcomes are worse than in much of Europe. And health inequality is the widest since Victorian times. Labour's experiment has failed."

Speaking about Liberal Democrat plans to guarantee patients private treatment if NHS treatment is not available within set waiting times, Nick Clegg said:

"Everyone should have the right to private treatment, paid for by the NHS, if the waiting time is not met.

"We would extend direct payments and personal budgets - so people with long term and chronic conditions choose what care they need. And we need a network of Patient Advocates to provide information, guidance and support to those who need it.

"I'm delighted that Reform has endorsed this Liberal Democrat proposal in today's report. And I support your suggestion that Health Protection Providers - or PCTs in our system - should be allowed to incentivise or even pay people for making healthy choices like quitting smoking or going to the gym regularly."