chem1st Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 NICE puts a value on human life in the UK. You may have seen on the news today how £30k will be spent by the NHS on drugs to keep somebody alive for a year. But up to £50k will be spent on cancer drugs. I refer to the story about the NHS not prolonging the lives of people with breast cancer as vast cost to the taxpayer whilst rewarding Roche handsomely, because the drug Kadcyla is too expensive and does not fit the value of life formula used in the UK. A pioneering new breast cancer treatment will not be routinely available in England and Wales, the NHS drugs advisory body NICE is proposing. The drug - Kadcyla - adds six months of life on average to women dying with an aggressive form of breast cancer. NICE criticised makers Roche for not setting an affordable price, in its updated draft guidance. The drug costs £90,000 per patient but Roche said it had offered a lower - undisclosed - price in recent talks. The two organisations have been in negotiations since the first draft guidance from NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), rejecting the drug, was published in April. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28688311 Roche will of course want as much money as possible, and will no doubt want the formula to change so that they can extract as much money as possible, it is in their interest as a profit seeking business. The changes to the value of life formula will no doubt cause debate. How much is life worth? The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) unveiled proposed changes to the formula it uses to decide which drugs should be funded by the health service today, but the measures have already come in for criticism. The cost-effectiveness watchdog has been promising to change its evaluation criteria for new medicines for some time, with a shift towards assessments that take a broader, societal view of their value and - in theory at least - should mean fewer rejections of novel therapies. The new value-based assessments would take into account for example whether a therapy would allow a patient to return to work, for example, and would make sure NICE does not use the age of people with particular conditions to make the difference between whether or not a new treatment is recommended. It will also introduce changes to the way quality-adjusted life years (QALY) - currently used to balance a drug's cost with the quality and length of life that might be restored by its use - are used to arrive at decisions. Specifically, the current ceiling of £20,000 to £30,000 per QALY - which can be raised to £50,000 for drugs used to extend life for patients at the end of their lives - should be replaced by a more flexible system, according to the Methods of Technology Appraisal consultation document. Under the new proposals, the range of £20,000-£50,000 per QALY will apply to all drugs under review. http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/nice_consults_on_value-based_assessment_changes_556285 Is the life of an older person (without any employment prospects), a life that has for the most part been lived already really worth £50k a year, whilst a younger person' life is worth just £30k, when they have had a far shorter life and could potentially still work? Why spend £50k on giving a dying person a year of life, when we deny other people (who are citizens) a basic dole? And risk a person losing decades of life for the sake of a few measly grand. A diabetic ex-soldier died starving and skint after officials axed his benefits. David Clapson, 59, was stripped of the cash after missing an *appointment under harsh Coalition reforms. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/killed-benefits-cuts-starving-soldier-3923771#ixzz39wVudYKq There are the odd few stories of people starving to death in the UK due to sanctions, and we all know how increasing amounts of people are having to resort to foodbanks. Yet we rightly provide humanitarian aid to people in need of it to stop them starving to death in a foreign country. British planes are to drop emergency aid supplies for Iraqi refugees living under threat from militants. Members of the Yazidi community trapped on a mountainside will be among those to receive water, tents and lights. The drops are part of an £8m package of aid announced by the UK government, bringing its total support to £13m. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28701642 Clean water, shelter, telecommunications, food. Required to sustain life. In the UK, this is essentially 'dole', in other words; means tested out of work benefits, in work benefits (tax credits) and housing benefit/housing in kind/planning permission. Dole has been around for a long time in the UK, and is there to stop people starving to death, although this safety net is being weakened and now failing, with the likes of foodbanks springing up to provide a safety net. Unemployment Act 1934 The 1934 Unemployment Act separated dole and insurance benefits, and the 10 per cent cut in dole was reversed. From 1936 an Unemployment Assistance Board (UEB) looked after workers who had used up their insurance benefits. The UAB took over some of the work of the Labour Exchanges and continued to administer the dole and means test. UAB officials were less severe than officials from the Public Assistance Committees, although reports from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the 1930s show that there was still a great deal of discontent with the low levels of benefit. The UAB set up training schemes and provided help to workers who wanted to move to another area to find work. Older unemployed men were sometimes given allotments to grow vegetables or raise poultry and rabbits. Society went some way towards accepting that unemployment was not a failing of the people, dispelling the notion that the poor could work if they really wanted to. Special Areas Act In 1934 the government passed the Special Areas Act. The Act identified South Wales, Tyneside, West Cumberland and Scotland as areas with special employment requirements, and invested in projects like the new steelworks in Ebbw Vale. Success of the Act was limited because the level of investment was not high enough and it was not until the late 1930s that the shadow of unemployment lifted from Britain, thanks in part to government investment in rearmament. Despite the failings of government action, few people actually starved to death as a result of unemployment - the dole was intended to keep the unemployed alive and it had done exactly that. Some commentators, such as the novelist George Orwell, believed the limited level of assistance was a key reason why there was no major social unrest in the period, and explained why extremist political parties made little headway in Britain even though they prospered in Germany. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1930-depression.htm You'd struggle to convince an intelligent man that the life of an unemployed person struggling to exist on the dole in the UK is overvalued, at less than £4k per year. Especially when we would spend an additional £50k to sustain the life of a person who has already lived their life, on top of universal benefits for the elderly that vastly exceed dole for the young unemployed, some of whom could quite literally face starvation and death in the UK due to a lack of dole in order to sustain their life. Is life overvalued or undervalued in the UK? Or does it depend on how a person's life is being valued? How do you value life, and what 'value' would you put upon it? Do you think NICE should change the value it places on life? Should money be better directed at people by the NHS to save lives? For example, ensuring a dole so that people do no starve, and building housing so they do not freeze. What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthenekred Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 "The drug costs £90,000 per patient but Roche said it had offered a lower - undisclosed - price in recent talks". I'm sure I read that the drug was originally charged by Roche at £196k per QALYs treatment and their reduced offer began at that £196k sum...so initially they were making an absolute killing (if you'll pardon the pun) before NICE said enough is enough. I'll try and find a link..I could be wrong though as I may have confused it with something else. It was easier than I thought, but 16k off the mark Maybe not such a killing after all. In the US the cost is significantly lower at £56k ($94k) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfish1936 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I am 78 years old. I am concerned about the monthly cost of the medications I am prescribed, one of which is over $1,000 per year (500 GBP approx.) I don't feel I have a right to demand several tens of thousands to be spent from the pockets of my fellow taxpayers to keep me alive; maybe for a cure, but not just to prolong life. Similarly, I don't want long-term intensive care, with ventilators and pacemakers and so on. Don't forget! the government/NHS is not being mean with its money; it's being mean with yours. You have to pay the taxes with which the government does its gracious bounty dispensing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mecky Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 £2 a month will help save a child's life in the third world blah blah blah so why are prescriptions here £8? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intake Too Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Imagine a world where we didnt need an army or crap like Trident and other assorted billion pound duds! We could have cancer beat! Imagine all the money, the billions and billions of wasted money being used for good like health care and research. Wed be so much better off. It wont ever happen though which is an awful shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthenekred Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 £2 a month will help save a child's life in the third world blah blah blah so why are prescriptions here £8? I've had many a prescription which had nothing to do with saving my life, not sure what it has to do with saving the life of children in the 3rd world, or even the thread for that matter. ---------- Post added 10-08-2014 at 10:02 ---------- Imagine a world where we didnt need an army or crap like Trident and other assorted billion pound duds! We could have cancer beat! Imagine all the money, the billions and billions of wasted money being used for good like health care and research. Wed be so much better off. It wont ever happen though which is an awful shame. Didn't you know, cancer has already been beaten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intake Too Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I've had many a prescription which had nothing to do with saving my life, not sure what it has to do with saving the life of children in the 3rd world, or even the thread for that matter. ---------- Post added 10-08-2014 at 10:02 ---------- Didn't you know, cancer has already been beaten. Mmmmmm. Interesting link. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Annoys me that I have to pay £8.05 for Asthma inhalers that clearly do not cost anything like that to produce. They should be available over the counter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intake Too Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 Annoys me that I have to pay £8.05 for Asthma inhalers that clearly do not cost anything like that to produce. They should be available over the counter. I darent even begin to add up what ive spent on prescriptions in the last few years. Thankfully most of that is behind me now but i must have spent 100s and 100s of £s. There were times when i had to go without other essentials just so i could get my script. In the end i bought my own medication from reputable places and saved a fortune. The doc went ballistic at me for it but when i showed him what id bought he just shrugged and said fair enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthenekred Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 I darent even begin to add up what ive spent on prescriptions in the last few years. Thankfully most of that is behind me now but i must have spent 100s and 100s of £s. There were times when i had to go without other essentials just so i could get my script. In the end i bought my own medication from reputable places and saved a fortune. The doc went ballistic at me for it but when i showed him what id bought he just shrugged and said fair enough Did this doctor have a bone through his nose? £104 a year...not 100s and 100s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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