EIGHT out of 10 GPs back the right of patients to top up their NHS care with additional drugs without having their state-funded treatment withdrawn, writes Sarah-Kate Templeton.

Only 18% of family doctors support the current system of forcing patients to pay for all their care if they choose

to raid their savings for treatments not funded by the NHS, a survey of 200 GPs commissioned by the campaign group Doctors for Reform has found.

Patients suffering from dementia and blindness have now joined cancer patients in demanding the right to pay for drugs the state does not fund, without having their NHS care withdrawn.

One diabetic patient is taking legal action to be allowed to co-pay for a drug to prevent him going blind. He is being represented by Melissa Worth, a solicitor at the law firm Halliwells, who is also acting for cancer patients.

Patients are paying privately for blindness drugs, injections and diagnostic tests, according to the Macular Disease Society.

Dementia patients also want to pay privately for drugs that the NHS has refused to fund, but fear losing their entitlement to state-funded care, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Thousands of Alzheimer’s patients have been denied drugs costing £2.50 a day that psychiatrists say would benefit them.

Alan Johnson, the health secretary, has launched an inquiry into the practice of denying NHS care to

patients who wish to co-pay for private drugs. About 90 MPs have signed an early-day motion by John Baron, the Conservative MP and former shadow health minister, asking for co-payments to be allowed.

Read other articles in the Sunday Times campaign to highlight the plight of cancer patients denied NHS care if they pay privately for a top up medicine:

Cancer pair win right for top-up drugs

Banned cancer drugs better than NHS ones

‘We’ve paid into the system all our lives. Why has the NHS turned on us?’

Cancer victim told to pay for his own drugs by NHS

Doctors for Reform fight NHS order to halt cancer care

Fighting cancer and the ‘unjust’ health service

Cancer patients fight to stop NHS withholding care

NHS threat to halt care for cancer patient

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