The decision by National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) not to approve the use of a number of Alzheimer’s Drugs, despite wide spread evidence from patients that these drugs approve the quality of the patient and their carers lives greatly. The drugs were developed after successful trails by Dr Paul Kemp, of Southampton University were carried out at Moorgreen Hospital in West End.
The drugs in question cost only £2.50 a day yet with the numbers of patients using them the cost to the NHS is still large. Speaking on the matter local Councillor David Goodall said:-
“Without a full and open decision making process it is difficult to know whether NICE is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or the National Institute for Cost Effectiveness. This decision appears to be taken on narrow drug cost grounds without a look at the wide impact to the community and the NHS if Alzheimer Patients are more difficult to care for as a result of this decision.”
Speaking from her local rally in Southampton on the NICE decision Southampton’s Liberal Democrat MP, Sandra Gidley said: “The Liberal Democrats generally support the role of NICE in making decisions about which drugs and treatments are clinically effective and which are cost effective. However we believe that these decisions should be made swiftly, consistently, openly, and based on the best possible medical evidence.”
Sandra said: “In this case NICE are refusing to disclose a fully-working version of the cost effectiveness model meaning the decision is not open to individual evaluation, leaving no-one satisfied that the decision took into account all the right factors.”