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It sounds as if we've been lucky then. Tony was offered early docetaxol without asking, last November. This is not as part of any trial, it was just regarded as an appropriate treatment. His oncologist showed us the CHAARTED trial results, which had, even at that time, led to a recommendation that newly diagnosed patients with advanced Pca should be offered this treatment if they wanted it. We do know that men who were much older were not offered it (T was 66), and also that he was the first man to accept the offer of this treatment - several others had turned it down. So I'm not so sure there would be a huge surge in demand. But anyway, it seems to be possible in some areas to have this treatment as a normal part of NHS care.
Marje

Edited by member 29 Jun 2015 at 18:17  | Reason: Not specified

Alison

You are right to look to other trusts or to trials to get what you need.

This is not right having to go through all this additional stress.

Does anyone know what the costs involved are?

Alison

Edited by member 30 Jun 2015 at 17:52  | Reason: Not specified

The cost of six cycles of docetaxel is, I think, around £5 -6000. I don't suppose this includes the hospital costs in administering it, but as treatments go, it's not an expensive one, and the significant increase in life expectancy, as shown in the recent Stampede results, must surely make it good value for money.
Marje

Many thanks to you all for your replies.

I will try to see if my GP is prepared to refer elsewhere, e.g. Bladerunner South Yorks would be OK for me.

My oncology nurse says they are preparing a list of patients for the treatment, but it's definitely not going to happen until it's approved. If funded by private means e.g. insurance no problem. One condition for NHS funding apparently is that the trial results have to published in a peer-reviewed journal, and this will take a few months at least (even the US trial results from last year haven't been published in this way yet unless anyone knows differently). The consultant also warned me that it may only be offered to those starting hormone therapy, and not men already on it, because (as pointed out by Marje) the backlog will be a problem rather than the drug cost - the excuse will be that the trial doesn't actually prove that it works for men who have been on HT for some time although it seems pretty obvious to most of us that it is likely to help. See http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ncdf-summ-docetaxel.pdf for some discussion of this re the US results.

Alison, I have asked for consultation in the Birmingham region, and if necessary will go private but I don't like to. I'd rather do that than pay the same people who refused NHS treatment in Notts!

The ominous thing about all this is that with NHS staff shortages, the present generation of guys on HT may not get this treatment in some regions. The cruel irony (and false economy) is that most will end up getting it later when it is of less benefit. We should perhaps be getting on to our GPs, MPs, newspapers etc. to point this out.

Again many, many thanks to you all.

If they had more money, could they have more buildings for the admin staff to work on their computers with appointment spreadsheets and make more appointments for the more Oncos paid for with the if only sufficient in place funding to deal with?

At the end of the day the options are less, the facilities are reduced, and if there was more funding, this would not be the case. The simplicity of it appears to me to be that with efficiency savings (Cutbacks without mentioning the C word) and lack of investment to match increasing demand, there is less for those that need it.

Fudning? S'wot it's all about.

dave