Campaign calls for panel to be scrapped

11:05am Thursday 23rd August 2007

Our Let Your Doctor Decide campaign has called on North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) to scrap its prior approval system for exceptional cases.

The system was introduced at the start of the year as part of a series of money-saving measures aimed at reducing its multi-million pound debt.

A wide range of hospital operations was suspended - and GPs were asked to send exceptional cases to a "prior approval panel" run by the PCT.

It is currently vetting patients sent by their doctors for treatments like back injections and IVF - as well as for orthodontics and oral surgery.

The panel has outraged doctors and patients, who argued the system interfered with medics' decisions.

More than 2,000 readers have now signed our petition to get rid of it.

Since the system was introduced The Press has come to the rescue of several patients who have been turned down for treatment by the PCT.

• February 2007 - Ivy Boulton, of Huntington, was rejected for surgery to remove a painful cyst on her eyelid, but after publicity in The Press, the PCT did a U-turn and granted her the treatment.

• April 2007 - Retired policeman Les Howard, of Acomb, in York, was told he would have to lose his sight in one eye before health chiefs would consider treating his eye condition. When the Nuffield Hospital read about his situation in The Press, it offered to fund the treatment.

• May 2007 - Pensioner Thelma Nixon, of Strensall, near York, was refused the eye injections she needed to save her sight after developing the condition - wet macular degeneration. After her plight was reported in The Press, generous readers stepped in to fund the treatment.

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