Tonight my guest was Linda Johnson, talking about her experience of cancer and the drugs used to treat it.

It has recently been announced that some cancer drugs are going to be withdrawn from the cancer drug fund on 12th March because they are deemed not to be cost effective, but these drugs do work and extend the lives of people with incurable cancer. Just because it’s incurable doesn’t mean that a person cannot have a good quality of life. They can live much longer, even though they cannot be cured.

8,000 cancer patients are likely to have their lives cut short following a decision to withdraw NHS  funding for 25 treatments. Linda has breast cancer, and she (along with 1,700 other breast cancer patients) will be affected by this decision. Charities have been quoted as saying that drugs which no longer receive funding have increased survival in some cases from 8 months to 2 1/2 years.

These drugs are not just buying people time at the end of their lives, they are buying them time while they are fit and well and enjoying a good qwuality of life. The decision whether or not to take these drugs Linda feels should be taken by the oncologist who is expert in the disease and the patient who is an expert on their own body. These decisions should be taken in the interest of the patient, not in an attempt to save money.

Linda has started an on line petition, and is going to Westminster to present it to John Baron , who is the all party chair for cancer as well as being one of our local MP’s. Help Linda and others like her by signing this petition at http:/epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/72199