Speaking in Prime Ministers Questions at 12 noon tomorrow, Emma Hardy, the MP for Hull West and Hessle, will ask the Prime Minister, Theresa May, to personally intervene to ensure that patients who currently are given pain infusion therapy will receive it.
Emma expressed concern to the Prime Minister that cuts made to NHS budgets have directly led to the rationing of services that were previously available to patients at the Spire Hospital in East Riding.
The question came about after Emma was contacted by a number of residents in Hull West and Hessle who have been prescribed Intravenous Infusions by their Clinical Pain Management Consultants. This treatment was prescribed because it is the most effective treatment for their chronic pain management. Without this treatment, they would be living in constant pain which effects the whole of their life. Their everyday activities would be seriously curtailed and simple tasks like sitting or sleeping would become intolerable causing them extreme distress.
Although Intravenous Infusion is not normally funded as a matter of course by either Hull or East Riding Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), these patients have been receiving this treatment for several years because it has been accepted that they have exceptional clinical circumstances that justify them getting funding.
As part of the regular review of this funding these patients, through their specialist Pain Management Consultants, have had to provide a supporting management plan to the Individual Funding Request Panel explaining why their exceptional clinical circumstances merits them receiving funding to carry on with the Intravenous Infusion.
Shortly before Christmas, the CCGs informed these patients that the Funding Request Panel has found that there is now a lack of clinical evidence to support the use of this treatment and it will be immediately adjusted and withdrawn over the next twelve months.
Emma is extremely concerned about why so many patients are now having this treatment withdrawn and the repercussions it will inevitably have on their quality of life. She has previously questioned the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the issue and has written directly to both Hull and East Riding CCGs as well as NHS England.
Commenting on the cuts to treatment, Emma said: “So far 10 people have come to see me about this same issue. They see their future as a life of severe and constant pain with no light at the end of the tunnel, many have told me they would see no point in continuing to live and the reason why is because they have received letters from either Hull or East Riding CCG informing them that their pain infusion treatment is being cut and then cancelled.
“We all know why this treatment is being removed, it’s nothing to do with NICE guidelines and it’s everything to do with the NHS having to ration treatment because of cuts. The cuts to the NHS shouldn’t be counted in terms of budgets but in lives destroyed. Today I called on the Prime Minister to show some compassion and commit today to both urgently providing Hull and East Riding CCGs with extra funding, and intervening personally in these cases to prevent my constituents facing a life of pain. I won’t stop pushing this government until she’s done both.”