Clive Stone: Cancer has to be top of election health agenda

Many thousands of us with cancer feel confused as to where we will place our cross on polling day after the recent withdrawal of a number of promised drugs from the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) by NHS England.

This fund was introduced by David Cameron, guaranteed until 2016, and has since given 65,000 patients extra time with their loved ones – an incredible achievement.

However, the list has recently been drastically reduced with further cuts anticipated, which is scary.

Bearing in mind that one in two of us can expect to get cancer sometime during our lifetime, this challenge must be properly grasped by politicians as the CDF was only meant to be a temporary measure pending the introduction of value-based pricing.

We never had an explanation as to why this was not introduced as a more sustainable alternative is required.

I am presently researching this together with other Department of Health/NHS cost issues.

There is also talk about taxing the Disability Living Allowance, which is the last news we need when fighting simply to stay alive.

I have already had to pay £30,000 from pension savings for two Gamma Knife treatments on my brain, despite having paid a lifetime of taxes, as the former local primary care trust said there was little evidence to support it, and yet I am still here several years later.

The Labour Party is also now making promises about creating their own Cancer Treatment Fund.

Yet the last Labour government declined to help us at all.

Indeed, in 1999 they introduced NICE, which among other things rations drug availability and costs the taxpayer some £64.3m per annum.

There are so many negatives surrounding us that it’s hard to know where to begin, and yet it is an established fact that staying positive helps cancer survival.

It’s as if we have already been written off by those in power as just an expensive nuisance and yet we still hang on to that special human spirit in the hope that one day scientists will find an answer, at least for the sake of our children’s generation.

It’s important that we continue to press those involved in research to further maximise their efforts as they are in a privileged role to help others and so much depends on them.

Macmillan cancer charity has just reported that survival rates for the common cancers in the UK are trailing 10 years behind other EU countries and people are dying needlessly.

It calls for the political parties to make cancer a top health priority in the General Election.

In reply, it says the National Clinical Director for Cancer at NHS England confirmed that “we have come on in leaps and bounds since this 2009 data highlighted by Macmillan but we have an ambition to save even more lives and it’s time to take a fresh look as to how we can do better”.

I have been advised that a new independent cancer task force has been set up to develop a new cancer strategy over the next five years.

Labour leader Ed Miliband

This is welcome but the timescale will mean that it will be too late for many. At this rate we will never catch up with other countries.

Patients feel we are now regarded merely as pieces on a chess board with the decision-makers failing to fully realise the magnitude of just how such decisions impact ordinary families and their loved ones, as a cancer diagnosis is borne by all the family with little in the way of any support or social care help.

Many promises are already being made by election candidates but no-one seems to have the exact answer as to just how our NHS will be funded in the future. This needs to be addressed if it is not to fall into private hands like the USA, where we will need our credit cards.

As cancer patients, we will be unable to obtain any private healthcare insurance. It’s not looking good, for if this happens then only the wealthy will live after we have all paid our taxes.

It seems right to me that either we should all pay a little more for an improved NHS by adding a few pence on our taxes, or we try harder to persuade the highly-profitable pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices.

We have no indication of just how much they spend on developing a drug for market and the NHS simply has to go along with the price required. This lack of transparency is being challenged by healthcare companies in the USA.

We have a great NHS but it still needs to become more efficient by reducing waste, reviewing the number of senior staff and spending more on hard-pressed front-line staff.