NHS Cancer Treatment - Quick Response or Shortfall in Treatment?

Its a subject that often gets debated - just how good is cancer treatment on the NHS?

The answer is a complicated one. It depends on the type of cancer, and the type of treatment.

In most cases, the NHS is very good at dealing with cancer quickly, because it is commonly known that the faster you treat cancer the better the survival chances are. Some hospitals are able to see patients quicker than others, and some hospitals have better response rates to particular cancers.

However, the subject of cancer drugs is constantly being reviewed by the NHS, with patients often missing out on recieving the best course of treatment because the drugs they require are not available through the NHS.

A new example of this is Enzalutamide, a drug used to treat prostate cancer. Under a new guidance issued on Wednesday, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have proposed that patients who previously received the drug abiraterone should no longer be offered Enzalutamide, and as a result the NHS will only fund one of the two methods of treatment, instead of offering both drugs should the first try be unsuccessful.

Enzalutamide costs around £25,000 per course of treatment, and the chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK says that some patients are using their own savings to pay for this privately.

It has been proven that Enzalutamide can extend the life of a prostate cancer patient by five months, and in some cases as long as 18 months. To put a price on such valuable time is difficult to comprehend.