Member News
The Conservatives have criticised a "postcode lottery" in cancer care.
The comments came after the Tories highlighted figures showing that some primary care trusts (PCTs) are spending more than twice as much as others on specialist drugs such as Herceptin.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said that: "It is clear that in different parts of the country radically different approaches are being taken on whether patients should be given access to these new drugs.
"These huge variations are not justified by the clinical evidence, which worryingly means that they must therefore be being dictated by financial considerations.
"Last year cancer drug spending stalled even as patients went without the latest medicines or were made to pay for them.
"This is a year when NHS budgets provided by taxpayers rose by nine per cent. Where has all the money gone?"
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd