After two-year delay 'left 20,000 people blind', patients finally get sight-saving drug on NHS

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Thousands at risk of blindness could soon qualify for sight-saving medication on the Health Service.

The Government's rationing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), will announce the last milestone for its approval of the drug today.

But it is feared the two-year appraisal has already cost the sight of up to 20,000 sufferers.

Some campaigners believe that primary care trusts may be given an extra three months to fully fund the service, after the final guidance is issued in June - which could lead to even more patients going blind.

Under the ruling, trusts will have to fund the drug Lucentis for sufferers from wet agerelated macular degeneration, or AMD, which is the leading cause of blindness.

The condition can lead to sight loss in as little as three months and needs prompt treatment. Until now, many of the the 19,000 sufferers in England and Wales each year have had to fight their trust for the drug in the courts, pay privately or go without.

Lucentis costs up to £28,000 for a full course of treatment over two years. An initial NICE verdict made trusts fund the drug only for patients who had gone blind in one eye, and restricted it to one in five sufferers.

But a record-breaking 13,000 patients, doctors and campaigners protested against the proposals issued in June, forcing a U-turn.

The latest guidance says Lucentis can be offered to the majority of sufferers whether it is the first or second eye affected, but rejects the use of another drug, Macugen, on the NHS. Both are approved for use in Scotland.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People said there must be no delay in providing the drugs.

Steve Winyard, RNIB's head of campaigns, said: "Countless patients have already been either robbed of their sight, or stripped of their life savings, to pay for private treatment."