KATE Spall, the woman who successfully spearheaded the campaign to get cancer treatment Sunitinib available on the NHS, makes an astonishing claim today.

She has told us that since it became more widely known applications could be made to the NHS to get funding for life-extending drugs, she believes some PCTs have been telling doctors not to put forward some of their patients. If this is true then our health system is even more flawed than we have previously feared over the years we have fought to end the NHS postcode lottery.

And it would prove there really are beancounters without a shred of compassion working within a system that should have humanity at its core.

The attention-grabbing figure is that here in Oxfordshire the number of people successful in seeking life-extending treatment has fallen to less than one in three. The previous year it was more than half.

It is difficult to judge whether this is a massive backward step without knowing each individual case. But statistically it is harder for terminally ill cancer sufferers to get the treatment that may give them a few more precious months.

And if any health official is in collusion to discourage patients from even trying to get these drugs then they should examine their conscience and ask what they are doing working in a health service.