A change of Hart?
This morning the door shut on some cancer patients in Wales - those suffering with renal cancer and who were hoping to get drugs called Avastin, Nexavar and Torisel on the NHS. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence announced they had not been approved as first treatment options for advanced kidney cancer or cancer that has spread around the body. They were deemed not to be cost-effective.
NICE also turned down the use of Sutent as secondary treatment options for people with either form of the disease.
In January the drugs had been made available in Wales until NICE came to its final decision. Decision made, the response from the Welsh Assembly Government and from Edwina Hart was swift and unequivocal:
"The Minister expects clinicians in Wales to follow NICE recommendations for the use of these drugs now that the final guidance has been published, although patients who have started treatment with one of the drugs not recommended by NICE should be allowed to continue treatment until they or their clinician consider it appropriate to stop."
In other words: I said in January you could carry on prescribing here in Wales even though they'd already stopped in England but now, sorry, it's over. Stop prescribing to new patients. Final answer.
A few moments ago a second statement was issued and this is it:
"The Minister is considering the NICE guidance and taking advice from clinicians". We're told to disregard this morning's statement.
The second statement is described as a "clarification". It's no such thing. It says something quite different to the first. It means that if a cancer patient saw a doctor this morning, that doctor could not have put them on any of these drugs. If they see the doctor tomorrow, they'll be told they can have them, for now.
Edwina Hart was already being accused by the former Conservative health spokesperson, Jonathan Morgan, of falsely raising the hopes of cancer sufferers and of misleading the National Assembly. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats castigated her for raising hopes, only to dash them.
I think the language is about to get much, much stronger.
I'm Betsan Powys, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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