Poorly Brits to get new lifesaving drugs four years sooner as NHS gets major shake up
Doctors and patients have waited more than ten years for some vital treatments
SICK Brits will be able to access life saving new drugs and technology four years quicker under a major shake up of the NHS’s approval system.
Britain lags behind other Western countries in signing off new scientific leaps.
Patients and doctors have been forced to wait more than a decade for some crucial treatments, sparking uproar.
But a new assault on bureaucracy and a process streamlining unveiled by health chiefs today will make the UK “a world-leader”, ministers have pledged.
The developments have been recommended by a review lead by ex-Department of Health boss Sir Hugh Taylor.
Under his recommendation for an ‘Accelerated Access Partnership’, key national health bodies will be brought together to pool knowledge and horizon scan.
Health Minister Lord Prior said: “We are determined to make the UK the best place in the world to develop new drugs and other products that can transform the health of patients.
“The report provides us with a strong basis to make the right decisions about how the health system can be adapted to meet the challenges of the future.”
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The development comes as a former Cabinet minister claims the UK’s creaking health system is seeing 46,000 avoidable deaths a year from common serious diseases, such as breast and prostate cancer and stroke.
Former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson will today slam the “political-media consensus” as he reveals how Britain lags far behind other countries in saving lives.
The senior Tory will demand an urgent Government inquiry into why the NHS performs so poorly on international comparisons.
And he will open the door to the private sector doing much more by questioning whether “a centralised state-run monopoly of healthcare” is the best system.
Former Environment Secretary Mr Paterson will say: “It is clear that possibly the most unquestioned consensus in politics today concerns the National Health Service.
“It is an area of public policy that, like no other, a politician dare not touch.
“We simply do not have the best healthcare system in the world and the sooner we debunk the myth, the sooner we can square up to the reality and start improving our healthcare system.”