RNIB’s Blind Fury Over NICE Delays

The RNIB has accused the government body charged with deciding what drugs are available on the NHS of “massive incompetence” that could lead to up to 10,000 people in the UK going blind unnecessarily.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has announced, following an unprecedented public outcry, that it will not issue guidance on sight-saving drugs as expected this autumn.

Instead it will spend the next few months considering its position before issuing a second set of preliminary guidance for consultation.

This means that final guidance about whether the NHS should pay for sight-saving drugs for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) will be delayed until next year.

The announcement comes just two months after Nice published its original preliminary recommendations denying these treatments to 80% of patients with wet AMD.

Only those patients who had already gone blind in one eye would be eligible for anti-VEGF drugs Macugen and Lucentis.

An unprecedented 20,000 people and health campaigners wrote to Nice about its preliminary guidance.

Steve Winyard, the RNIB’s head of campaigns, said, “By going back to the drawing board to issue a second set of draft guidelines, Nice is in effect admitting that it got their preliminary recommendations badly wrong.

“This incompetence means that every day it reconsiders and delays, 50 people could lose their sight.

“I would urge Nice to now look properly at the overwhelming evidence, follow the example of the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), and quickly come to a decision to give everyone who needs it immediate and unquestionable access to these sight-saving treatments.”

Wet AMD is the leading cause of sight loss in the UK and affects a quarter of a million people.

The condition can lead to sight loss in as little as three months and requires prompt treatment if sight is to be saved.