Cancer sufferer wins drug ruling

Colin Ross's desperate 'end-of-the-road' legal challenge to an NHS trust's refusal to fund treatment was allowed by Judge Simon Grenfell.

The judge, sitting in London, overturned West Sussex Primary Care Trust's decision that the new drug Revlimid would not be cost-effective, and said the case should be treated as 'exceptional'.

He ruled on Wednesday that the trust's decision 'was one which no reasonable authority could have made on the application before it. It follows that the decision must be quashed'.

Mr Ross (55), who suffers from the bone marrow cancer multiple myeloma, has just a couple of months to live but the drug could give him an extra three years.

If he had been living in East Sussex, he would have been prescribed Revlimid.

A trust spokesman said: "West Sussex PCT has the greatest sympathy with any patient suffering from a terminal condition.

"The PCT has difficult commissioning decisions to make and accepts that the judge has made an interim order providing that we should commission funding for a course of treatment for Mr Ross which will include the drug Lenalidomide (Revlimid).

"There are some difficult and complex issues which the judge has asked us to review and we will now consider the full impact of his judgment."

See the West Sussex Gazette issue dated September 17 for the full story.