Published 18 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b647
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b647

News

Spending money on end of life drugs will divert resources from prevention and chronic care, MPs told

Oona Mashta

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Measures to improve patients’ access to end of life treatments announced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will divert resources away from preventive and chronic treatments, says a leading health economist.

Professor Christopher McCabe, chair in health economics at the Institute of Health Sciences at the University of Leeds, told MPs on the Health Select Committee that the move provided incentives for manufacturers that "are not consistent with promoting the health of the UK population."

After a consultation on appraising end of life medicines, the institute will consider all the benefits when they are asked to make recommendations on the use of treatments that extend life in patients with short life expectancy.

Some terminal illnesses affect small numbers of patients, and the treatments licensed for these illnesses require a substantially higher share of NHS funding than is normally the case for effective new treatments recommended by . . . [Full text of this article]


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