Concern over eyesight 'lottery'

NHS chiefs say they cannot afford to fund the treatment

Eye patients in Oxfordshire are at risk of losing their sight because of a NHS postcode lottery, it has been claimed.

Local primary care trust chiefs say they cannot afford to send sufferers of macular degeneration for vital treatment at an eye clinic in Oxford.

Yet those who live under the care of trusts in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Warwickshire are being sent there.

Conservative MP for Witney, David Cameron, has called for the trust to make therapy available to sufferers.

All that needs to happen is for the primary care trust and the government to say "yes, we must go ahead with this now" MP David Cameron

Local resident, John Newman, who is slowly going blind, told the BBC: "I feel that having worked all my life, paid all my national insurance contributions, that when I come to collect those national insurance contributions and they say no - it does seem unfair."

Mr Cameron said: "I think it's a dreadful state of affairs when clearly these people need a particular treatment.

"When there are doctors and nurses ready to give a particular treatment, when there are people from Berkshire and Wiltshire and other counties who are getting the treatment.

"All that needs to happen is for the primary care trust and the government to say "yes, we must go ahead with this now".

The call comes just days after Conservative leader Michael Howard raised the issue in the House of Commons.

He called for a new treatment, photodynamic therapy (PDT), to be made available immediately to those who need it.

But the South West Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust has said it is unable to fund the treatment.

A statement read: "At present the primary care trust...is unable to fund photodynamic therapy within this financial year's budget.

"However, we are planning to offer the therapy by June 2004."