The drug Herceptin is said to improve survival rates and quality of life for women with advanced breast cancer - but, according to the charity, around 1,000 women in the UK who could benefit from it are not being given access to it.
The charity says their experience shows that the lottery of postcode prescribing, with access to healthcare dependent on where you live, is alive and well.
Breakfast talked to Joanne Rule, from CancerBACUP - and to Dorothy Griffiths, who heard about Herceptin from a friend. At the time Dorothy was diagnosed with breast cancer, Herceptin wasn't available on the NHS. She wrote to her local newspaper, and to everyone she could think of, from Prince Charles to Tony Blair.
"Eventually, the Chief Executive of my NHS trust stepped in to fund it," she explained.
Dorothy has lived to see the drug approved by NICE - without it, she would have died by now "Herceptin turned my life around, " she told us.
"It's a basic human right to have the drugs you need to keep you alive," Dorothy told us. "I have seen my grandchild born - I would not have seen that without Herceptin."
Regional Differences
CancerBACUP believes that it's not enough for NICE to issue guidelines: there should be better monitoring to ensure that individual hospitals are following them.
The charity has studied rates of prescribing for Herceptin across the UK. It has found wide regional differences, with only 14% of women in the Midlands getting Herceptin, compared to 61% in the South West.
The government says it's committed to ending the post-code lottery - but CancerBACUP believes that the guidelines on prescribing Herceptin, issued by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, are not being followed properly.
Further details from BBC News Online
The government's drug watchdog, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, says that the NHS should pay for the drug.
However, a survey, carried out by makers Roche, found that only a third of suitable patients were getting it.
The Department of Health does not collect information about how many women are prescribed Herceptin, which can extend lifespan - and improve quality of life - among women with advanced breast cancer.
The NICE decision was expected to cost the NHS �17 million a year, but charity CancerBacup said there remained a "postcode lottery" in which some areas supplied the drug freely, while in neighbouring communities, it was not readily available.
Wide variations
In some areas the problem is particularly bad - in the Midlands only 14% of eligible women get the drug, compared with 28% in the north of England, 33.5% in south-west England and 61% in the south-east.
In all the figures suggest that as many as 1,000 women with breast cancer were being unfairly denied the drug.
CancerBacup chief executive Joanne Rule said that all health authorities and local hospital trusts should be monitored, and forced to comply with NICE guidance. She said: "It's daft that the only way that the NHS knows what's being prescribed is if the manufacturers tell them."
Herceptin is only suitable for women who have a certain gene - HER2 - and it is often the lack of testing facilities locally which obstructs them from receiving the drug.
Unless a HER2 test has been carried out, then the drug cannot be given.
'Get tough'
Ian Gibson MP, the chairman ofthe All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, said: "It's time for the government to get rough and tough with cancer service providers.
"People deserve to have all the facts at their fingertips."
A spokesman for the Department of Health that the NHS had to fund treatments which had been given the thumbs-up by NICE.
However, it said that strategic health authorities would have to take action to make sure the NHS took up the guidance at local level.
No new funds were made available specifically to cover the cost of testing and prescribing - trusts are expected to meet the cost from existing budgets.
She added: "The NHS is under a statutory obligation to fund treatments recommended in NICE appraisals.
"It has been made clear to local health trusts that NHS patients should not be denied access to these drugs on the grounds of funding."
Delyth Morgan, chief executive of Breakthrough Breast Cancer said: "Breakthrough campaigned hard to ensure NICE the approved herceptin, a drug which can give extra precious months of life to an estimated 3,000 women with advanced breast cancer.
"We believe women should be offered the best available care whoever they are and wherever they live.
"While effort is put into researching and developing improved, life-enhancing treatments like herceptin - equal effort is needed to ensure they reach the patients they are intended for, otherwise, what is the point?"
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The NHS is under a statutory obligation to fund treatments recommended in NICE appraisals 
