Call for action on eye treatment

Winifred Armstrong says she can live an independent life

A woman from Leicestershire said she wants a treatment for people losing their sight to be available on the NHS.

Winifred Armstrong, 86, from Oadby, is one of about 200,000 people in the UK with the eye condition wet aged-related macular degeneration.

She re-mortgaged her home in order to raise the £30,000 so she could undergo the treatment privately.

But Mrs Armstrong said those patients who were unable to pay faced losing their sight altogether.

'False economy'

She said: "I'm fortunate enough to be able to raise that money from the house but they (people who can not afford private treatment) can't. So they will go blind.

"When they are blind, the social services will have to look after them, so it's really a false economy."

The drug Lucentis is acknowledged to have revolutionized the treatment of this condition, but after two-and-a-half years the health watchdog NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) still has not approved its use on the NHS.

That means the decision to make it available has been left to individual primary care trusts.

Lucentis costs around £900 for a single dose and, if finally approved by NICE, will cost the NHS about £200m a year.

Mrs Armstrong has used Avastin, a cheaper alternative, but still had to re-mortgage her home to get it.

She is totally blind in her left eye but said treatment to her right eye meant she could still get around and live an independent life.

In a statement the Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust (PCT) said locally patients had been prescribed Avastin and that a policy was in operation allowing the use of both that and Lucentis within clinical guidelines in the light of the emerging NICE guidance.