Patient challenges trust’s right to deprive her of NHS treatment for buying drugs privately

A test case to decide whether patients can lawfully be deprived of NHS treatment if they opt to pay privately for drugs that their local NHS trust is unwilling to fund is headed for the High Court in London.

Sue Bentley, 67, from Monmouthshire, who has lung cancer, is challenging the decision by Velindre NHS Trust in Wales to charge her for two other drugs that are normally free to health service patients because she has opted to pay privately for …