Cancer patient Andy Crabb said today he was "relieved” that his third appeal for the life-extending drug Sunitinib had been successful.

Mr Crabb, 50, is among 25 kidney cancer sufferers in Oxfordshire who have been denied funding for the drug by Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust because it is deemed too expensive.

He was diagnosed in September last year.

In May he began a 28-day free trial of Sunitinib, but after that he and his wife Dianne were forced to pay £3,300 every six weeks to buy the tablets.

Since then he has fought a battle to have the drug provided on the NHS.

The father-of-three from Crosslands Drive, Abingdon, received an email last night from his consultant informing him that yesterday’s appeal was successful.

Today, he and members of his family gathered at Abingdon United Football Club in Northcourt Road to celebrate the decision,.

He said: “I was watching the Manchester United game and check the email at half time and was amazed to see that the decision had come through. I had to have a quiet sit-down and found it very difficult to concentrate on the second half.

“The news has spread round very quickly and my mobile hasn’t stopped ringing.”

The only other individual in Oxfordshire to have successfully appealed for the drug to be prescribed on the NHS is Stephen Dallison, 35, from Oxford who also suffers from kidney cancer.