I'm a regular catter, but have decided to post this anonymously - it may become obvious why. If a JoeClone wishes to delete it, so be it.

One disadvantage of the NHS system is that cases like the one in this thread arise. It would hardly be human if the people concerned did not fight tooth and nail for their child/husband/wife/parent to try and get them the best possible treatment. Sometimes the point at issue is a question of using a generic versus a named drug, at other times it is whether NICE [a sort of control board] has authorised the drug. However, the hard truth is that we as ordinary citizens rarely know enough to understand whether the differences involved between a generic drug and the named drug are significant or not. For example, if the 'amount' of an active component varies by up to 45% as that thread states, it does not follow that the effectiveness varies significantly, or even at all. It could, of course, but it is drug dependant. And of course, the company making the named drug is hardly going to underplay the benefits of using their product.

A petition can only really take the decisions out of the hands of NICE and put it into the hands of politicians who, as a rule, know nothing about it and are more concerned with the effect on whether they get re-elected than on the medical consequences. So I am afraid, in my view, these sorts of petitions are not in the best interest of the citizens overall. A petition that "politicians should follow the recommendations of NICE" [which that thread says isn't happening] is another matter, and I'd be happy to sign that one.

All this might suggest I'm posting to the wrong thread. I don't think I am because my main point is that with an NHS system hard choices still have to be made, and we, as ordinary people, become exposed to those choices. They are not simply things the medics involved in the specific case decide. Moreover, it introduces a risk that medical decisions get overridden by polical ones.

One thing we have to recognise is that sometimes the NHS simply can't do things in the way those actually involved in the heartbreaking events would like. In a private scheme, as long as can pay, you can have virtually anything you like, but that is something you have to give up with a NHS-like scheme.

A further complication in the way the NHS is set up is that treatment is all-or-nothing [I believe]. You cannot have the NHS treat 90% of a condition then 'top-up' something with a privately chosen medicine. In this case, for example, the people involved cannot choose to pay extra and have the non-generic drug.