I spotted this UK Telegraph piece whilst on dawn patrol today but had to turn instead to an examination of Maltese commercial law.
The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.
The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.
But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery. Comparative Effectiveness (NICE), the overseeing board that determines what treatments our British friends get under the NHS, ruled that people suffering from chronic lower back pain not tied to a specific diagnosis will be denied steroids such as cortisone.
Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.
The comments are well worth the read, but here’s one that seems to sum up our discontent.
Kick a politician in the head every day for a year and you will be pain free for the rest of your life.
The Porkulus Bill created a US version of the NICE – we call it “comparative effectiveness” here.
