Patient 'not celebrating' refund

A bowel cancer patient who is receiving a refund of about £10,000 from a primary care trust after he paid for care said he would not celebrate.

Clifford Shore and Barbara Moss were told they could not have free NHS treatment if they bought Avastin, a life-extending drug not on the NHS.

Worcestershire Primary Care Trust has said since it was reimbursing the pair for the NHS element of their care.

Mr Shore said he would not celebrate as he had to raise the money originally.

'Some learning'

The Department of Health said on 4 November that the NHS should not withdraw treatment from patients who chose to pay privately for additional drugs, a decision it said was based on a "landmark report".

But that did not change the NHS position on the prescription of Avastin.

The trust has said it would reimburse Barbara Moss £13,000.

Mr Shore said: "I'm going to return it (about £10,000) from whence it came.

"I've an obligation, like Barbara Moss, to see that that part which was family money is returned and the rest goes back to my exchequer, however I got it."

A spokeswoman for the trust has said it would consider all future claims on an individual basis and stressed the payments were for costs relating to the patients' healthcare, rather than Avastin.

Dr Richard Harling, director of public health for the trust, said the cases had shown there was "some learning" to be done for the trust.

He said: "I think that whilst our policy was sound and our decision-making process was sound, I think the accompanying bureaucracy perhaps wasn't as easy to navigate as it could have been."

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