Cancer 'insurance' policy will pay for expensive drugs ruled out by NHS

The top-up cash plan is designed to plug gaps in NHS care, including the denial of life-prolonging drugs to cancer patients in England and Wales that are available in Scotland.

The policy is unique in that it gives patients access to a legal helpline and free legal advice if they face being penalised by having NHS treatment withdrawn as a result.

Policy: Linda O'Boyle was refused NHS bowel cancer treatment because she paid for the drug Cetuximab

The scheme from Western Provident-Association is a direct challenge to the Government's refusal to allow top-up payments for treatment not provided on the NHS  -  forcing patients to go fully private.

Doctors and campaigners have attacked the Government's stance as unlawful and unjust because it deprives patients of NHS care they would otherwise have received.

Ministers are under pressure after the death of Linda O'Boyle, 64, who was refused bowel cancer treatment on the NHS because she paid £11,000 for the drug Cetuximab.

Other cancer patients face the same dilemma, while the pressure group Doctors for Reform is seeking a judicial review to have the ban on top-up payments declared illegal.

Under WPA's NHS Top-Up Plan, those paying premiums from £15 to £24 a month will get cash benefits towards everyday medical expenses including dental and optical treatment and prescription charges.

Patients under 60 can add on the cancer drugs option from £4.20 a month to get access to advanced licensed drugs that are not available from the NHS.

This gives them up to £50,000 lifetime benefit, whether these drugs are administered in the NHS or in the private sector.

If the patient's local NHS trust denies treatment and will not allow the top-up with privately funded cancer drugs, the benefit funds their administration in the private sector and provides free legal advice.

Julian Stainton, chief executive of WPA, said expert legal opinion showed no reason why patients should not move between NHS and private treatment, and no bar in law to a patient buying their own drugs and having them administered as part of a course of NHS treatment.

The presidents of the Royal College of Surgeons and Royal Society of Medicine have spoken out against the Government's policy, while the British Medical Association's consultants body has voted against it.

The Department of Health said patients are free to take treatments not available on the NHS.

But it added: 'The additional treatment may involve some associated care which cannot be provided separately.

'In these cases, the patient must be treated privately for the whole of that package of care.'