Only 56% of the government’s £50 million interim Cancer Drugs Fund – or just under £27.5 million – was spent by Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) in England during the time the Fund was available from October 2010 to March 31, 2011, new figures show.
This spending rises to just over £32.5 million (65%) if anticipated future costs are included for patients whose treatment was initiated before March 31, says leading charity the Rarer Cancers Foundation (RCF), in a new report evaluating the impact of policies to improve access to cancer treatments.

The study shows that 2,880 applications were made to the interim Cancer Drugs Fund during October 2010-March 31, 2011 (773 applications in March alone) and that, overall, 2,506 cancer patients gained access to treatment as a result of the Fund, although applications for 187 patients were denied.

It also reveals a dramatic postcode lottery with a northsouth divide in approvals, as SHAs in the south of England approved a lower number of applications than those in the north.

For example, NHS South Central approved around 75% of applications during the period whereas NHS North East approved every application it received, and while NHS South West used less than a quarter of its allocated funds, NHS Yorkshire and the Humber spent slightly more than its allocated budget.

Most SHAs have taken steps to expedite the application process for the Fund, with one – NHS East of England – removing the requirement for clinicians to submit exceptional-case applications before they can access the Fund.

Also, six out of 10 SHA operate lists of drugs which will be routinely reimbursed through the Fund. “This approach reduces bureaucracy, enables rapid decision-making and provides greater certainty to clinicians and patients,” says the RCF.

However, NHS North West’s operation of a negative list of drugs which will only be funded in exceptional circumstances breaches the spirit of the Cancer Drugs Fund policy, says the RCF, adding that, despite guidance instructing SHAs to cease using negative lists, NHS North West’s list was still operational on June 3, 2011.

The Fund could potentially benefit more than 30,000 patients, enabling them to access 34 treatments which would not have been routinely available on the NHS, and patients with bowel, kidney and blood cancers have been among the greatest beneficiaries, the report finds.

The most-requested drug – by far – has been Roche’s Avastin (bevacizumab), followed by Merck & Co’s Erbitux (cetuximab), Novartis’ Afinitor (everolimus), GlaxoSmithKline’s Tyverb (lapatinib) and Roche’s MabThera (rituximab).

Commenting on these findings, RCF chief executive Andrew Wilson said that while it was “great news” that thousands of patients have benefited from the Fund, it was concerning that 187 patients had been denied life-extending treatment “despite money going unspent and the emergence of significant regional variations in approval rates.”

The report also looks at progress with Primary Care Trust (PCT) exceptional-case processes. It estimates that 7,743 applications were submitted between April 2007 and December 2010, and suggests that the substantial increase in application rates during October-December last year reflects the fact that many SHAs required clinicians to submit exceptional-case applications to PCTs before a treatment could be considered for reimbursement from the Cancer Drugs Fund.

October-December 2010 (the period in which the interim Fund was introduced) also saw a dramatic drop in the exceptional-case approval rate.

This is likely due to more clinicians being encouraged to apply for treatments which would have stood little chance of being approved before the Fund was introduced, the Foundation suggests, although it adds that this requires further investigation.

Women unable to conceive naturally are being denied IVF on the NHS because they are too young, too old, too fat, smoke or live in Wales – in flagrant breaches of the guidelines.
The postcode lottery nature of the restrictions placed on NHS fertility clinics around the country is revealed in research which shows that more than 70 per cent of primary care trusts are ignoring guidance from the National Institute for Curbing Expenditure (Nice) to offer infertile couples three free cycles of IVF.

Five of the trusts – Warrington, West Sussex, Stockport, North Yorkshire and York, and North Staffordshire – do not provide IVF on the NHS at all.

Most trusts restrict the number of free cycles to one or two, even where they offer them between the ages of 23 and 40. However, women living in Wales have to wait till they are 38 years and six months in many health trusts before qualifying for treatment and must quickly complete their two free allotted cycles – one less than the three recommended by Nice – by the time they are 40. Success rates for IVF decline sharply with age. For every 100 women treated aged 35 and below, 20 will get pregnant; between 36 and 38 around 15 will get pregnant; and at age 39 around 10 will get pregnant.

In 2004, Nice said couples should be given up to three cycles of IVF on the NHS, where the woman is aged 23 to 39.

But despite repeated government reminders, the guidelines have never been fully implemented across the NHS. The latest reminder was sent to trusts (PCTs) by the NHS deputy chief executive, David Florey, in January.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Infertility sent Freedom of Information requests to all 177 PCTs in England and Wales in March and received 171 replies. Gareth Johnson, Tory MP for Dartford and chairman of the group, said the variation in the criteria showed the Nice guidelines had been “taken out of context and used to place arbitrary restrictions on the provision of IVF”.

He added: “IVF treatment was invented in Britain and so, more than any other country, we should be championing its use.”

Claret Lewis-Jones, chief executive of the patient group Infertility Network UK, said: “It is totally unacceptable that some PCTs are still failing to fund fertility treatment for patients despite the Nice Fertility Guidance issued in 2004. Some PCTs which do fund treatment are only providing one fresh cycle and failing to fund frozen embryo transfers, with many others implementing restrictive access criteria which means eligible patients are denied access to treatment which would be available if they lived elsewhere.”

Tony Rutherford, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: “Infertility is a devastating condition which affects one in six couples in the UP. The World Health Organisation recognises infertility as a physical illness that requires treatment; however, it can also cause significant emotional and psychological harm to patients. By not being given fair access to fertility treatment on the NHS, patients are being denied the opportunity to start a family of their own.”

The Health minister, Anne Milton, said: “Many PCTs have made good progress towards implementing the Nice recommendations on the provision of IVF treatment. I am aware, however, that a small number of PCTs with historical funding problems have temporarily suspended provision of IVF services. I have already expressed my concerns about this approach and would encourage all PCTs to have regard to the current Nice guidance.”

Couples’ distress can be amplified when they find that a neighbouring town gives access to NHS treatment while theirs doesn’t – as an accident of geography. The unambiguous Nice guidelines were intended to solve that problem and restore the “national” to the National Health Service. But trusts have continued to ignore it.

As the parliamentary group’s report points out, IVF was pioneered in the UP – Professor Robert Edwards received the Nobel Prize for his work with infertile couples – but because of our parsimony and lack of vision we provide less of it than neighbouring countries. Moreover success rates have risen from 14 per cent live births in 1991 to 24 per cent in 2008, so investment in the treatment is delivering more babies for the bucks.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/more-than-70-per-cent-of-nhs-trusts-break-rules-to-deny-ivf-ndash-and-save-money

More people died after contracting swine flu in Britain last winter than during the previous year’s pandemic.
Official figures show there were at least 562 deaths linked to the H1N1 virus during the most recent “season” compared with 474 in the global outbreak of 2009.

The young and the middle aged bore the burnt of the cases with 50 children and nine pregnant women dying across the country, according to the Health Protection Agency.

It came after GPs in some areas struggled to access sufficient vaccines, prompting the Government to raid a stockpile from the previous year while hospitals were forced to cancel planned operations in order to care for critically ill flu patients.

In an attempt to avoid a repeat of the recent problems, the Department of Health now hopes to vaccinate far more people including frontline doctors and nurses as well as at-risk groups such as pregnant women and those with long-term diseases. It will also hold a central reserve of jabs and may centralise supply in future years.

Prof John Watson, head of the watchdog’s respiratory diseases department, said: “The information published in our annual flu report confirms that seasonal flu activity in 2010/11 was higher than last winter and that H1N1 ‘swine’ flu was the dominant strain. Sadly, a small proportion of flu cases resulted in serious illness and death, predominantly in young and middle aged adults.

“Each year hundreds of thousands of people catch flu and the majority will make a full recovery. Traditionally the elderly have been more seriously affected by winter flu but the picture is beginning to change as we are now seeing a higher proportion of young and middle aged people taken seriously ill.”

The pandemic outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus, thought to have originated in Mexico, led to the deaths of 474 people in Britain between June 2009 and April 2010. Most of those who died had underlying health problems.

The HPA’s report on the most recent season – between September 1st, 2010, and May 4th, 2011 – shows there were 602 fatal influenza cases across Britain while a further 91 probable cases are still under investigation to confirm the cause of death.

The highest regional concentrations of deaths were in the north west of England (96), Yorkshire and the Humber (83) and Scotland (63).

More than 90 per cent of the fatalities, according to data obtained from death certificates, were linked to the H1N1strain but 40 were among those who had the Influenza B infection, leaving at least 562 deaths in those who had swine flu.

Only about one in five deaths were in pensioners and three quarters of those who died had not been vaccinated.

Nine babies died before their first birthday, along with 16 pre-schoolers and 25 children aged between five and 14.

During last winter’s outbreak the Government tried to vaccinate vulnerable groups such as pregnant women against flu but there was neither a programme to protect all children nor a campaign to publicise the jabs, despite public outcry.

Prof Watson said: “We are very concerned that only half of adults eligible for the jab last winter took up the offer of vaccination, and particularly that just over a third of healthy pregnant women received it.

“For the majority of people with these conditions, flu is a preventable illness and ahead of the next flu season, a concerted effort must be made by healthcare professionals – including GPs and midwifes – to encourage those at risk to take up the offer vaccination. It is the best way to protect against flu.”

But stocks of the flu jab ran short in some areas and the “worried well” were accused of using up supplies.

In the first seasonal flu plan, published by the Department of Health on Wednesday, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, claims the system “coped well” last winter but admits: “The consequences of the surge in demand for vaccine as well as the number of patients requiring treatment in hospital were felt across the primary and secondary care systems; there were also issues for the vaccine industry.”

The report sets a goal of increasing uptake of the vaccine from 50 per cent to 75 per cent as well as buying a “central strategic reserve” of the jab in case of shortages.

Ministers are also considering introducing a “central purchase system” for the vaccine – rather than letting individual GPs order it directly from manufacturers – on the grounds that it may make the system “more robust” as well as increasing uptake.

From:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/More-swine-flu-deaths-last-winter-than-during-pandemic

The children and families minister Sarah Teather has attacked the health service for failing some of the country’s most vulnerable young people.
Sarah Teather said the chance of a child receiving much needed speech and language therapy was a postcode lottery “between low and nil”, while the wait for a wheelchair could be “really long”.

Teather, who spent most of her own secondary school days in a wheelchair after suffering from a viral infection, said the health service “has not always been good at doing its fair share for children in this position”. Families were often left as the “piggy in the middle”, she said in an interview with the Guardian.

Health workers often agreed with parents that a child needed a wheelchair, incontinence pads or a form of therapy, but “nobody pays for it” and it fails to arrive, she said. This could severely impair a child’s chances in the future, she warned: “A six-month wait for speech and language therapy can be critical; an 18-month wait can be really critical.”

In some cases, by the time a wheelchair arrives, a child has grown too big for it, she said, adding that it was a “postcode lottery” to get basic equipment.

Government proposals, published in a green paper in March, would improve life for children with special needs and disabilities and their families, she said.

At the moment, children with severe or multiple health and learning disabilities receive a statement from their local authority. This covers only the services that schools are expected to give children, rather than those they need from the health service or social services.

The green paper proposes to replace the existing statement of special educational needs with a single care plan covering schooling, health and social services from birth to the age of 25. This would mean a child’s educational, social and health needs would be dealt with together. The plan would reflect a family’s needs and ambitions for the child’s future and would be continually reviewed.

The green paper also set out plans to give parents a personal budget to spend on services such as one-to-one tuition, laptops and wheelchairs.

“Rather than a family having to go to the council trying to bang down their door to get something, [the council] are coming to you saying, this is what we normally provide. The family then has a conversation about whether it is appropriate,” Teather said.

The government also plans to introduce into all schools a programme to help children with special needs improve at a faster rate.

Researchers found the Achievement for All programme helped nine- and 10-year-olds with special needs to learn reading, writing and maths three times faster than they were expected to under the national curriculum. Under the same programme, 14- and 15-year-olds with special needs made progress in maths and English that was equivalent to having an extra term of lessons in a year.

The programme, which has been piloted in 454 schools in 10 local authorities since 2009, works by setting pupils regular targets. Teachers and parents discuss progress three times a year for a minimum of 45 minutes. Children with special needs and disabilities are strongly encouraged to join school clubs and activities outside lessons.

Sonia Blandford, director of the programme, said it could reduce by 10% the proportion of children registered as having special needs.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/nhs-failing-vulnerable-young-people

From today (April 1st) England is now the only UK country where some NHS patients still pay for prescription charges.
Scotland has today joined Northern Ireland and Wales in scrapping fees for prescriptions.

About half a million people in Scotland are expected to benefit from the change, which has been brought in by the SNP government.

It comes on the same day as prescription charges per item rise in England by 20p to £7.40.

Prescription charges were first introduced in 1952 – just four years after the NHS was set up – in order to prevent the “frivolous use” of the health service.

The fees were abolished in Wales on April 1, 2007 and Northern Ireland followed in 2010.

The BMA has campaigned against the charges.

“The bureaucracy needed to administer prescription charges is cumbersome, many of the exemptions are confusing and unfair. Patients with disabling long term conditions still have to pay them, despite a recent report recommending they be phased out,” he added.

The BMA accepts that these are financially difficult times, said Dr Meldrum but, he added: “this is a tax on the sick that contributes only a modest amount to the NHS budget and does not offset the unfair disadvantage of asking the ill to pay for their medicine.”

From : http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/doctors-slam-uk-prescription-charge-postcode-lottery

The results of a Phase III trial have shown the ability of GW Pharmaceuticals’ cannabinoid based medicine Sativex to reduce severe spasticity associated with Multiple Sclerosis.
According to the data, published in the European Journal of Neurology, about half of MS patients who had failed to respond to standard therapy experienced an improvement in spasticity after taking Sativex Oromucosal Spray (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol).

The trial hit its primary goal of demonstrating that Sativex induced a significant improvement in the scores of spasticity, spasm frequency and sleep disturbance related to spasticity compared to a placebo.

Following a four-week, single-blind therapeutic trial period involving 572 patients, Sativex was shown to have reduced the mean score for spasticity, with 48% of patients achieving a clinically meaningful improvement of =20% in spasticity severity.

Of these responders, 241 took part in a 12-week, randomised, placebo-controlled trial phase, at the end of which the number of patients reporting an improvement in spasticity scores of =30% was significantly greater in the Sativex group (74%) than in the control arm (51%).

“We have been aware for a long time that cannabinoid medicines can significantly improve spasticity, which is a common, complex symptom of MS, and now the results from this study prove the positive impact they can have on patients’ symptoms, and ultimately their lives,” said Professor John Zajicek, Honorary Consultant in Neurology, Derriford Hospital and Chair of Clinical Neurosciences at PCMD, University of Plymouth, commenting on the findings.

MS affects around 100,000 people in the UK, and spasticity is a common symptom that is considered to be a major cause of disability, interfering with many every day activities such as walking, picking up objects, washing or dressing.

Sativex was approved by health regulators in the UK and Spain last year, but only in patients who have not responded to other medication and who show a clinically significant improvement in symptoms during a trial run of therapy.

Overall, GW Pharma is celebrating a stellar year with 27 sales hike GW Pharma s cannabis-based MS drug approved in Spain GW rolls out cannabis-based MS drug Sativex in UK Sativex deemed approvable by regulators in UK Spain. GW Pharma’s share has also received a boost on initial Sativex research on reducing cancer pain data.

From: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Study_backs_use_of_cannabis-based_Sativex_to_treat_MS

The British Medical Association (BMA) has renewed its call for England to abolish prescription charges, after it was announced that they will rise from £7.20 to £7.40 on April 1 and Scotland abolishes them altogether.
The government in England  “should be following the lead set by the three other nations in the UK and making plans to abolish them,” said Hamish Meldrum, chairman of council at the BMA.

The current system is “a chaotic and unfair mess – patients in England have to pay, while those in Wales and Northern Ireland do not,” and from April 1 Scotland will completely scrap its charges, “a move that further exaggerates the absurd postcode lottery that exists in the UK,” said Dr Meldrum.

“The bureaucracy needed to administer prescription charges is cumbersome, many of the exemptions are confusing and unfair. Patients with disabling long term conditions still have to pay them, despite a recent report recommending they be phased out,” he added.

The BMA accepts that these are financially difficult times, said Dr Meldrum but, he added: “this is a tax on the sick that contributes only a modest amount to the NHS budget and does not offset the unfair disadvantage of asking the ill to pay for their medicine.”

Responding to the BMA’s charges, a Department of Health official claimed that around 90% of prescription items in England are already dispensed free of charge, and that the price of the 12-month prescription pre-payment certificate is to be frozen for the second year running, allowing patients to get all the prescriptions they need for an average of £2 a week.

Moreover, abolishing prescription charges in England would lead to a shortfall for the NHS of more than £450 million a year, equivalent to the salary costs of nearly 18,000 nurses, or 15,000 midwives or more than 3,500 consultants, the official added.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) pledged to scrap prescription charges during its election campaign in 2007, and since then the price has dropped each year. Last week, the Scottish Parliament’s health committee voted to finally remove the charge, which now stands at £3, defeating a last-minute attempt by Scottish Conservative Member of Parliament (MSP) Mary Scanlon, -  with the sole support of Liberal Democrat MSP Ross Finnie – to retain it.

Scottish Public Health Minister Shona Robison described free prescriptions as “a long-term investment in improving health” and dismissed allegations that the measure “will only help those people who are described as rich.”

“If people are put off seeking appropriate care for financial reasons their health will not improve, but if patients can get the treatment they need it will not only help their health but ultimately help to reduce the longer-term costs to the health service as well,” said Ms Robison. “Importantly, abolition will help all those people who have long-term health conditions which don’t currently entitle them to exemptions,” she added.

From: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Doctors_slam_UK_prescription_charge_lottery

Dying cancer patients have been refused costly life extending drugs on cost grounds despite a Government promise to end the “scandal” forever.
Their requests have been rejected by regional health authorities who were accused of operating covert “blacklists” to restrict dozens of treatments to save money.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than 80 cases in which desperately sick NHS patients have been refused the cancer drugs their doctor sought, in the four months since a £200 million fund was introduced to stop health authorities rationing treatments.

The fund was a key move by the Coalition so that those suffering from cancer would never again be refused drugs on grounds of cost.

Ministers were responding to years of anger over a system which meant patients were unable to secure life-extending drugs because central NHS rationers had decided the treatments were not “cost effective”.

Announcing the fund last summer, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, promised to end “the scandal” of cancer patients being refused the drugs that their doctors sought, because of restrictions by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

A £50 million stopgap version of the fund was launched in October, before the annual £200 million investment starts in April.

But this newspaper’s investigation has raised serious concerns over its operation, including:
* At least 86 cases involving terminally-ill patients being turned down;
* Extreme variations in access to drugs, with one NHS region promising free access to more than three times as many cancer treatments as another;
* Local policies so restrictive that in many parts of the country, consultants are expected not to even bother asking for drugs which are not on the “priority lists”.

In its first four months, the fund has paid for approximately 1,300 patients’ drugs – even though research last March suggested up to 20,000 cancer patients’ lives were being shortened each year by drugs rationing.

The Government has allowed each NHS regional health authority to set its own rules about which drugs are put on priority lists, creating a postcode lottery across the country.

If treatments are not on the list, patients and their doctors have to fight harder to justify why they should get them.

Bureaucrats have created complex structures, leaving terminally-ill patients to spend their last months fighting for drugs which could increase their survival.

The policies say every possible funding route for drugs must be exhausted before the NHS will even consider dipping into the fund.

Cancer charities warned that some NHS authorities were attempting to “drive a coach and horses” through the Government pledge.

They fear the £50 million fund may actually end the financial year underspent because of the restrictions.

Andrew Wilson, chief executive of charity The Rarer Cancers Foundation, said: “We are deeply concerned that health authorities are creating really restrictive policies which go entirely against the spirit of the fund – which was that clinicians would be able to decide what treatment their patients need.

“Some organisations are effectively operating blacklists of drugs, while others are making every patient go through lengthy bureaucracy to apply as an exceptional case, when in fact they are a cancer patient requiring treatment should be sufficient. The way some of these organisations are operating drives a coach and horses through the principle of the scheme.”

In most parts of the country, if a patient requires a treatment such as Avastin for bowel cancer – which NICE says is too expensive – their doctors must first apply to see if their primary care trust will fund it as an “exceptional case”.

If that is refused, as would normally be the case, a separate application is then made to request authorisation from the cancer drugs fund – and if that too is refused, patients and doctors are left to attempt an appeal.

Patients refused include those seeking Avastin for advanced bowel, breast and brain cancer, Tyverb for breast cancer and drugs to treat tumours of the bladder and kidney.

NHS authorities said they had turned down requests because they did not think there was enough evidence patients would benefit from drugs their doctors sought. In other cases, they were refused help because their medical history did not match the precise criteria drawn up by trusts.

There is also concern over the “postcode lottery” in availability of drugs.

NHS North West has cited 22 drugs which should normally be funded – while NHS South Central, spanning five counties from Oxfordshire to the Isle of Wight, lists just six treatments which would automatically be allowed.

The policies are so restrictive that in Yorkshire and the Humber, just 82 patients have been given funding. Yet across the East of England, with a similar population, 201 cases were funded.

Even those areas which seemed to have the most generous policies have tightened their belts as end of financial year approaches.

In the North West, which had backed the use for Avastin for some advanced breast cancers, and Glivec for cancer of the stomach, says patients who have not been given funding will now have to wait until April before their cases are even considered.

Several have changed their rules even in during the four months since the fund was set up, so that several patients in London were denied drugs under one set of criteria, only to have their cases reconsidered all over again as their health declined.

Mike Hobday, head of policy at charity Macmillan Cancer Support, said he was “very worried” by the findings of the investigation.

He said: “Every cancer patient should get the drugs their doctor recommends, regardless of what type of cancer they have, or where they live.

“A few extra months towards the end of a patient’s life can mean the difference between seeing a child get married or graduate.”

Health Minister Anne Milton said: “Since October, more and more patients are being treated with life-extending drugs that they wouldn’t have got under the previous system. Demand for the fund will vary across the country; we set up the fund in order to balance out existing variation in access.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Cancer-sufferers-refused-life-extending-drugs-despite-Government-pledge

More than 10 million people alive today will live to be more than 100 years old official government figures expect.
Ministers say people should prepare to spend more than a third of their lives in retirement due to the “staggering” rise in life expectancy.

In the first official projection of its kind, the Department for Work and Pensions forecasts that almost a fifth of Britons will celebrate their 100th birthday.

Of the 17 per cent of the population who will become centenarians, about three million are under the age of 16, and 5.5 million are aged between 16 and 50.

The statistics show that there are 1.3 million 51 to 65 year-olds who are likely to get their royal telegram, along with 875,000 people who have already retired.

In total, about half a million people a year will be celebrating their 100th birthday by 2066, compared with about 10,000 now. Nearly 8,000 of them will reach their 110th birthday.

Steve Webb, the pensions minister, urged workers to begin saving for their retirements as soon as possible. Mr Webb is trying to introduce significant reforms to the pensions system.

“These staggering figures really bring home how important it is to plan ahead for our later lives,” he said. “Many millions of us will be spending around a third of our lives or more in retirement.

“That’s why we are reforming the pension system to make it sustainable for the long term, making sure people can look forward to a decent state pension when they retire, and helping millions save into a workplace pension, many for the first time.”

Experts said the rise in those aged over 100 years old – the fastest growing age group – has profound social, economic and financial implications.

Taxpayers face an increasing bill to meet the pension and health care costs of the elderly.

Individuals will have to work later, sell their assets and put more money aside throughout their lives to fund retirements that could last more than 30 years.

Ministers have considered linking the state pension age to life expectancy which could see future generations working into their seventies.

Ros Altmann, the director-general of the Saga Group, said: “Pension funds were never designed to cater for lots of people living to 100. We have got more and more people who are going to live longer with much less money and something has to be done about it.”

Official research has also found that most Britons expect to die earlier than is likely to be the case.

In 1981, there were 2,600 centenarians but this is forecast to rise to more than 280,000 by 2050.

There has already been a 70 per cent rise in people living to 100 since 2000, with six women to every man in this age group.

The rich and those living in southern England typically enjoy longer lives.

As people are living longer, ministers are trying to encourage workers not to opt out of new workplace pensions to be introduced next year.

Most workers retire with a pension previously intended to fund a retirement of 10 or 20 years – rather than an extra 30 years of life. For example, savings of £100,000 would pay out at least £5,000 a year for two decades, but less than £3,500 over three decades. Under the “auto enrolment” scheme, all workers will be offered a pension to which their employer will make some contributions.

However, people can ask to leave the pension.

The Government has previously declined to cut universal benefits offered to pensioners and will increase the state pension in line with wages, rather than inflation, from next year.

Some experts believe that such measures will become increasingly unfair on younger generations.

Life expectancy for babies and those retiring has confounded experts, rising more quickly than expected.

Average life expectancy for a newborn girl is now 81 years and nine months, while for boys it is 77 years and seven months.

More than a quarter of newborn boys 30 years ago were expected to die before their 65th birthday, compared with 15 per cent today.

All centenarians receive a card from the Queen.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/10m-alive-in-Britain-today-will-live-to-be-more-than-100-years-old

The scale of the “postcode lottery” of care that patients can expect across England, and the different amounts of money health authorities spend on problems, has been highlighted for the first time in an NHS survey.
The NHS Atlas of Variation has found that some NHS trusts are failing in key areas including cancer, stroke, and diabetes care.

For the first time geographical differences have been drawn together into a series of 34 maps that the public can view online to see how well their region is performing.

It shows a 14-fold difference in spend on broken hips between best and worst areas; a four-fold variation in the proportion of stroke patients who spend almost all their hospital time in a dedicated stroke unit; and a 38-fold difference in rates of obesity surgery.

Some health authorities spent more than two-and-a-half times as much on mental health services, while there were similar differences in spend on inpatient cancer care.

Lord Howe, the Health Minister, welcomed publication of the atlas, saying: “In order to improve unwarranted variations in services, it is vital to expose existing flaws in the system.”

Charities said the move demonstrated greater openness but warned the variations showed patients were being let down in many areas.

Prof Chris Ham, chief executive of The King’s Fund, a health think-tank, said the atlas “brings into sharp relief variations in the quality and cost of care across the NHS”.

He said: “With the NHS needing to find £20 billion a year in productivity improvements, reducing unwarranted variation is no longer an option – it is a necessity.”

Many of the maps are standardised to take account of differences in age, sex and prevalence of the condition – some of the major reasons typically cited for variations in care.

The report therefore reveals that practices between NHS trusts vary in ways that cannot always be explained by social or patient factors.

The amount spent on broken hips by primary care trusts (PCTs) ranged from little over £500 per 1,000 people to more than £8,000 – even after differences in local population need were taken into account.

Rates of obesity surgery ranged from just 1.1 operation per 100,000 population to 38.9, with higher rates tending to be in poorer areas.

On cancer, some PCTs spent more than £40,000 per 1,000 population on inpatient care while others spent less than £20,000. Devon, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire were among the higher spenders and parts of London towards the lower end.

However, Mike Hobday of Macmillan Cancer Care said this was one area when higher spend was not necessarily a good thing.

He said: “We think spending less money on inpatient cancer care is better, because that means people are being supported more effectively.”

Shorter hospital stays – and hence lower inpatient costs – indicated better cancer therapies and back-up-treatment were being used, he explained.

Regarding variations as a whole, he added: “What this shows is that the NHS still isn’t very good at sharing good practice from one hospital to another.”

However, he welcomed publication, saying it demonstrated greater “openness”.

The percentage of patients receiving nine key checks on their diabetes control – including for kidney damage, cholesterol and weight – varied from 60 to 70 per cent in Norfolk and parts of Yorkshire to zero to around 40 per cent in places like Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.

Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said the charity was “seriously concerned”.

“This demonstrates that the NHS is failing to provide universally high quality care across the country and shows that diabetes care is still a postcode lottery,” she said.