ALMOST half of patients in Oxfordshire applying for life changing cancer drugs were turned down last year because their cases were not ‘exceptional’.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed NHS Oxfordshire, the primary care trust, received 514 requests for funding for exceptional circumstances in the last year.

But it decided only 30 per cent of the applications met the ‘exceptionality’ criteria.

The requests – a last chance for patients to get treatment not usually funded by the NHS – included 48 requests for cancer drugs, of which 52 per cent were granted.

Yesterday NHS Oxfordshire refused to discuss the figures.

Jenny Wheeler, whose husband Jim died in 2008 after being told his case for life extending kidney cancer drug Sunitinib was not exceptional, branded it “disgusting”.

Eight months after Mr Wheeler died, the drug was finally approved to be routinely funded on the NHS as a first line treatment for kidney cancer by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Mrs Wheeler, from Kidlington, said: “These are truly devastating figures for anyone to read.

“They’re basically telling people to go away and die.

“I remember Jim’s face when he found out he had been turned down. He just looked at me and said ‘well that’s game over for me then’.

“Jim had about five days off work sick in his whole life. He never asked for anything.

“But when he needed the health service he had paid into his whole working life, it abandoned him because he wasn’t ‘exceptional’. Well, he was to us.”

NHS Oxfordshire refused to answer questions on its exceptionality funding policy. Instead a press officer sent an link to an online policy document.

In it, NHS Oxfordshire states a patient can apply to be considered as an ‘exceptional case’ when the treatment they require is not normally funded by the NHS. Their case is built by their GP or clinician who have to prove their patient is being affected more than others with the illness and the treatment will be more beneficial to them than the average patient with the condition.

Oxford Mail columnist and cancer rights campaigner Clive Stone, from Freeland, near Witney, said: “This is appalling. Many of those who were turned down for cancer drugs probably died without treatment.”

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the numbers were typical of the way the NHS was now run.

He added: “It’s simply wrong that hundreds of people are being turned down for treatments while the NHS squanders a fortune on PR and advertising campaigns.”

Percentage of exceptional case funding requests for all drugs approved by health area

Buckinghamshire 50.1

Oxfordshire 30

Milton Keynes 73

Northamptonshire 17.7

Berkshire East 31

Percentage of exceptional case funding requests for cancer drugs approved by health area

Buckinghamshire 51-60

Oxfordshire 51-60

Milton Keynes 71-80

Northamptonshire 21-30

Berkshire East 81-80