[UK] Trust’s refusal to fund trastuzumab was “arbitrary”

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BlankBMJ 2006;332:747 (1 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7544.747

News roundup

Trust’s refusal to fund trastuzumab was “arbitrary”

BMJ Clare Dyer, legal correspondent

An NHS trust that refused to pay for a woman with breast cancer to be treated

with the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) was accused of decision

making that was “arbitrary in the extreme,” in the Court of Appeal this week.

Pannick QC, counsel for Ann Marie , made the accusation as he

launched an appeal against a High Court ruling last month upholding the stand

taken by Swindon Primary Care Trust.

Ms , a 54 year old mother of three with HER2 breast cancer, has likened

the trust’s refusal to fund the £22 000 (€32 000; $38 000) a year treatment to

“a death sentence.”

She is appealing against Mr Justice Bean’s ruling that the trust’s policy of

funding the treatment only in exceptional cases was not irrational and unlawful

or in breach of her right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Full story

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/short/332/7544/747?etoc (subscription

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