A charity is claiming an NHS medicines watchdog wants to restrict the use of a treatment that can save thousands of people's sight.

The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) is calling for a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - the leading cause of blindness in the UK - to be made widely available.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is publishing a consultation document on the treatment on Monday.

AMD affects around 50,000 people in the UK, and an estimated 100 people who could have benefited from treatment go blind every week.

If we don't have a very robust position ... then these recommendations will find their way into the final guidance

Joe Korner RNIB

It affects central vision, affecting people's ability to read, watch television, drive and recognise familiar faces.

Wet AMD is a particularly aggressive form of the disease which accounts for around 90% of cases of blindness caused by the condition.

Patients with wet AMD can experience significant loss of sight within 3-6 months.

The NICE document looks at photo-dynamic therapy treatment (PDT).

PDT involves an infusion of a photo sensitising drug before the application of a specific wavelength of cold laser light.

'Insufficient evidence'

One of the suggestions in the document is for the treatment to be restricted to a small number of those with wet AMD and should only be provided in specialist centres.

A Royal College of Ophthalmologists working party has said some patients would benefit from the treatment, but there was "insufficient evidence to support the widespread use of PDT in the NHS or private practice."

But the RNIB said around 5,000 people each year who did not live near a specialist centre would be forced to either pay for private treatment, or lose their sight.

NICE has not made any recommendations, nor issued any guidance to the NHS at this time

Anne-Toni Rodgers, NICE

Joe Korner, spokesman for the RNIB, admitted to BBC News Online that this latest NICE publication was not final guidance.

But he added: "If we don't have a very robust position in defence of patients who need this treatment, then these recommendations will find their way into the final guidance.

"We will be submitting our views as part of the consultation process, but we felt that we really needed to make these statements publicly."

Anne-Toni Rodgers, spokeswoman for NICE, said: "I want to be clear NICE has not made any recommendations, nor issued any guidance to the NHS at this time.

"We were asked to look at this treatment because genuine uncertainly as to it's long term value for patients, had resulted in 'post code prescribing'."

Uncertainty

She said the guidance would put an end to this and estimated around 1,000 patients every year would be guaranteed PDT, at a potential cost to the NHS of �8m per year.

She added: "Despite what is known about this treatment, the fact is that is still a great deal of uncertainty about its long term effectiveness."

The Conservative Party criticised NICE for failing to publish guidelines sooner.

Shadow Health Spokesman Oliver Heald said: "These delays do nothing to reduce the confusion which patients must be facing.

"The key to successful treatment is to catch the symptoms early enough and NICE's drawn-out process and frequent 'draft conclusions' only delay the date at which patients will have the certainty they need."

This is not the first time campaigners have attacked NICE's position on AMD.

Earlier this year, campaigners challenged NICE's recommendation that the treatment should only be offered to people who had already lost their sight in one eye.

But NICE then announced it was re-starting the appraisal process because it could not secure government funding to support the implementation of a part of its recommendations.