TWO thirds of Oxfordshire cancer sufferers saw bids for life-extending drugs turned down in the last 12 months.

The figure has risen since last year when just under half of requests were refused, despite a high-profile campaign to get key drugs for patients.

Cancer campaigners said the figures were heartbreaking.

NHS Oxfordshire said that of 37 people who asked for drugs not routinely prescribed between 2009 and 2010, only 12 were given the treatment. Last year, 25 people out of 48 managed to get the drugs they wanted.

Meanwhile, 60 per cent of people asking for gender identity treatment, which includes therapy for people who claim they were born the wrong sex, were given the go- ahead.

Last night one campaigner suggested patients were being discouraged from applying for funding.

Kate Spall, whose mother Pamela Northcott died after being refused a cancer drug, has spearheaded a campaign to get the kidney cancer drug Sunitinib freely available on the NHS.

She said individual funding requests had been the NHS’s best kept secret until the high profile campaign made more people realise they were entitled to apply.

But Ms Spall added: “I’m not speaking specifically about Oxfordshire... it seems to me the PCTs can’t cope with the number of people applying for the funding.

“It seems they have put their foot down and have been discouraging doctors from putting people forward for exceptional funding in the first place.”

Last night NHS Oxfordshire said funding would only be approved if patients clinical circumstances were ‘exceptional’.

A spokesman explained of the 37 requests for cancer treatments, nine applications failed because they needed additional information and were never resubmitted.

But Tracy Groom, who on Sunday will mark one year since her father Andy Crabb died from renal cancer, said many people applying for funding would have given up after the first setback.

Ms Groom, from Abingdon, said: “I will always remember the day Dad was diagnosed.

“All the results came back and the doctor told dad there were treatments available, but it didn’t matter, because no-one would pay for them.

“This is just heartbreaking.”

Kidney cancer patient Clive Stone, of Freeland, near Witney, spearheaded the local arm of the campaign.

He said: “Now more people know about this possible access to treatments, more questions are being asked of the PCTs.”

An NHS Oxfordshire spokesman said last year the trust spent about £40m on cancer services.

She added: “When a request is made for funding for patients who do not meet the published criteria, funding may only be approved if their clinical circumstances are exceptional when compared with other patients who would also wish to receive that treatment, but who also do not meet the criteria.

“These funding requests for treatment using drugs not normally funded by the NHS and not recommended by Nice, represent a tiny minority of the large number of patients who receive cancer treatment in Oxfordshire.”

Patients, backed by their GP or a clinician, can submit ‘individual funding requests’, for treatments such as life-extending cancer drugs, weight-loss surgery for thos who are life-threateningly obese, fertility treatment for infertile women and gender reassignment for transgender people.

It is billed as a last chance for people to get treatments which are not usually offered on the NHS.

In total, the PCT received 561 requests for treatments in the past year. It approved 153 – 28 per cent of the requests.