Health charities have slammed the decision by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excelle...
Health charities have slammed the decision by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to limit the use of drugs that help people suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Nice has confirmed it will deny drugs such as ebixa NHS funding even though groups including the Alzheimer's Society and Research Institute for the Care of the Elderly have said the drug and others of a similar nature can aid improvement of the memory, language and the ability to perform daily activities in dementia patients. Nice's decision came after a failed appeal by the drug's manufacturers Eisai and Pfizer.
Nice has recommended the drugs only be used as part of clinical studies for those with a severe form of the condition.
In addition, Nice recently decided the drug donepezil, used to treat people in the early stages of Alzheimer's, should be withdrawn.
Andrew Dillon, chief executive at Nice, said the NHS was limited to prescribing drugs it can afford.
It has now come to light that this decision is to be challenged in court.
This news came at the same time as Dillon suggested that money is a factor in deciding whether to make certain drugs available on the NHS. Speaking on ITV's The Sunday Edition recently, he added: "What we start doing every time we look at something new that the NHS can use is: what's the additional benefit that patients can get for it? But we do have to take into account what it's going to cost the NHS to make those drugs available."
He added that there was nothing wrong with the state system looking at what new drugs were available, comparing them to what was currently being used and deciding whether it was worth it to buy the new drugs.
An estimated 700,000 people in Britain suffer from Alzheimer's or other associated forms of dementia, with about one million people caring for them.
Alzheimer's is a neuro-degenerative disease that causes progressively worse cognitive deterioration.
