Thousands of couples are being denied NHS fertility treatment despite pledges made

Thousands denied fertility treatment as half of England's health authorities fail to honour pledge - Guardian

Extract:

"Thousands of couples are being denied NHS fertility treatment despite a government pledge of a full IVF cycle for those eligible by April 2005, a Department of Health survey has found.

The survey, the first monitoring by officials of how local NHS provision measures up to national guidelines, reveals that more than half of England's health authorities fail to provide the most basic treatment of a full IVF cycle, including freezing and replacement of embryos not transferred in the initial cycle.

Many women and their partners who fulfil strict criteria for a free IVF cycle are being denied it altogether, while others are receiving partial treatment which falls short of guidelines set up to standardise provision.

A recent all-party parliamentary report found that at local level the NHS regarded treatment of infertile couples as a low priority, with trusts "reluctantly funding the barest minimum" of treatment, if at all. Primary care trusts have refused treatment to smokers, to those considered too fat or thin, and to couples who have had sterilisation procedures.

The guidelines, issued in February 2004 by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), advise that eligible couples should be offered up to three cycles of IVF if the woman is between 23 and 39 years old. The measures were welcomed by John Reid, the then health secretary, who promised "at least one full cycle" to those eligible by the next year, with the NHS to work towards full implementation of three free cycles.

But the survey, by Infertility Network UK on behalf of the Department of Health, revealed an "enormous variation" in the social criteria set by trusts, with the female age range differing from the guidelines. It led to a situation where a 36-year-old woman in Wiltshire was told she was too old to have the treatment, while a 28-year-old in the Thames Valley heard she had to wait eight years for treatment because only those aged 36 to 39 were eligible."

Being overweight or obese often reduces a woman's fertility and also often reduces her chance of being offered fertility treatment. - The safest, fastest and most reliable way to reduce excess weight is to avoid eating salt and salty food. This benefits your health in many other ways too.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - wider implications

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Smokers to get drug before cancer patients do

Smokers get drug before cancer patients - Telegraph

Extract:

"A controversial drug to help smokers quit has been approved for use on the NHS at the same time as cancer sufferers and others have been denied potentially life-saving medication, it was disclosed yesterday.

Champix helps four times as many people stop smoking as those who take nothing and will be given free on the NHS.

The announcement was greeted with dismay as some patients are campaigning for access to cancer drugs, Alzheimer's medication and a treatment to prevent blindness.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) argues that helping people to quit smoking will save the NHS money in the long run because fewer will develop smoking-related diseases.

Champix, also known as varenicline, costs £163.80 for a 12-week course. Nice calculated that Champix would cost £6 million a year but treating fewer smoking-related diseases as a result would save about £11 million a year.

Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: "It won't be a lot of comfort for those whose mother is deteriorating with Alzheimer's or if you are going blind. There are lots of ways to give up smoking - you can get patches from the chemist or join a club. Why does the NHS need to fund it?"

The drug, which is made by Pfizer, eases smokers' cravings and reduces the satisfaction from a cigarette."

I can't say that I regard smoking as a disease and so I don't see why the NHS should be involved in funding drugs that are claimed to help in quitting smoking. If smokers choose to spend money on cigarettes, surely they equally can choose to spend money on methods of stopping smoking...


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

NHS foundation trust has backed down over plans to close a midwife-led maternity unit

Protests force U-turn on maternity unit closure - Guardian

Extract:

"As revealed in the Guardian, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trust had said it would have to shut the rural Darley Dale unit in Matlock, north Derbyshire, because, with just 120 babies born there each year, it was losing £312,000 annually.

But the decision meant heavily pregnant women would have to travel for up to an hour along country roads to give birth. The closure also flew in the face of plans announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to allow every woman the choice of a home, hospital or midwife-led birth by 2009.

The same recommendations were made by the maternity tsar Dr Sheila Shribman, and are set to be made by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The plan to permanently close the unit - which has been temporarily closed since the autumn - prompted 5,500 local people and the commissioning primary care trust to protest when it was announced as non-negotiable in a consultation document on revamping maternity services.

Today the trust bowed to this pressure - and to the threat, by the Maintain Our Maternity Services (Moms) campaign group, to seek a judicial review over the handling of the consultation."


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)