The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) has already launched an attack on the two year delay in approving photo-dynamic therapy (PDT) by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), an approval which finally came through last month (News, September 26).
The RNIB said that 18,000 people had lost their sight waiting for the approval.
But the RNIB has renewed its attack because the Department of Health has extended the usual three-month deadline for bringing in newly approved treatments to nine months. The department said that too much work would be required to meet the deadline.
The RNIB claimed that the extra six months took the deadline into the next financial year. Steve Winyard, head of policy at the RNIB, said: 'This is unacceptable and the reasons put forward by the DoH do not stack up. There must be at least the possibility that the real reason for the delay is the financial pressures that many primary care trusts are facing. The DoH is seeking to avoid placing new responsibilities on the PCTs within this current financial year. However, it is the patients that will pay the true price.'
Winyard added that a three-month implementation period was not impossible. 'If you had the cash you go and get treatment now Ð if you don't, you have to go blind,' he said.
AMD is responsible for 50 per cent of blind registrations in the UK. It doesn't result in total blindness but the severe loss of central vision. Novartis, maker of the PDT drug Visudyne, estimates that 7,500 patients a year will eventually benefit from PDT being available on the NHS. The NICE guidance should give doctors clear rules to use the treatment where it is proven to be most effective.
The Government has condemned another 3,000 people to losing their sight because it is delaying the implementation of a newly approved treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), campaigners said this week.