MS patients can benefit from drugs

Thousands of people with multiple sclerosis are still waiting for a chance to benefit from new drugs - even though the goverment launched a scheme to make them available last year.

Treatments such as beta-interferon have been shown to benefit some people with MS.

However, the drugs are very expensive, costing up to �10,000 per patient a year, and do not work for all patients.

The government launched a "risk-sharing" scheme last year under which the NHS would pay for the drugs if they were shown to benefit a patient, but if they did not, then the drugs company would foot the bill.

But figures released by Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow suggest that just 1,118 people have so far been recruited to the scheme - out of at least 9,000 people with MS who may be eligible.

Real difference

Mr Burstow said: "These figures show that people with MS are still facing an uphill battle to get access to drugs that can postpone the advance of multiple sclerosis.

"Delayed prescribing of the drugs can rob people of years of their life.

"Early treatment can make a real difference in delaying the progression of MS.

"Ministers call this scheme `risk sharing'. The only people taking a risk are MS sufferers and their families while they wait for the Department of Health to get its act together.

"Every day an MS sufferer has to wait to get on the scheme increases the chances that they will become too disabled to qualify. Ministers sold MS sufferers false hope 18 months ago. For some the wait has already proved too costly."

The new arrangement was predicted to cost NHS primary care trusts �50 million a year.

But Mr Burstow said no government cash had been specifically earmarked to pay for it.

He added that the NHS simply did not have enough neurologists or specialist nurses to offer a first-rate service to people with MS, or other neurological conditions.

About 3,000 NHS patients are already receiving the disease-modifying drugs under arrangements made prior to the risk sharing initiative.

Assessment dates

A separate study by the MS Society has come to similar conclusions.

The society found that nearly one in five of people estimated to be eligible for the drugs are still waiting for an assessment date.

Mike O'Donovan, the society's chief executive, said: "Though the scheme is working well in many parts of the UK, people in a number of areas have not yet been given a date for assessment let alone begun treatment.

"Ministers have repeatedly made clear their commitment to the scheme but continuing delays in certain places must be urgently resolved.

"Many people have been waiting for treatment for several years and are deeply worried that their symptoms may progress too far for them to qualify.

"To make matters even worse, they see others already on the drugs benefiting from fewer and less severe MS attacks."

The risk sharing scheme is administered from 64 centres across the UK.