A FORMER firefighter whose wife received a cancer drug now being denied to other Oxfordshire patients said it had given her a new lease of life in her final months.

Sue Jarvis, who died in September last year, aged 61, was one of just two people in the county to be treated with Lapatinib by the NHS to extend her life.

John Jarvis, 64, described it as a wonder drug and said NHS Oxfordshire’s decision not to give it to other patients appeared to have been taken on financial grounds.

On Wednesday, the Oxford Mail reported that Janet Hodges, 59, of Carterton, had been denied the medication by NHS Oxfordshire.

Her daughter Laura is now trying to raise £25,000 to pay for a course of treatment.

Mr Jarvis, of High Street, Kidlington, said: “As soon as Sue started taking Lapatinib, the improvement in her quality of life was unbelievable. Within a couple of weeks we saw the difference and the doctor was over the moon with the results.”

He added: “Previously, she had only been able to shop in a wheelchair, but she didn’t need it any more.”

The drug even gave the couple enough time together to take one last holiday to the Fire Fighters’ Charity recuperation centre at Littlehampton, in Sussex, with grandchildren George, eight, and Giles, four.

Mr Jarvis, who is now a driver for the Oxford Bus Company, added: “Whether or not she was a one-off, or it would work for other people, I’m not qualified to know.

“All I can say from my experience is that it was a wonder drug.

“To be fair to the hospital, I know there’s a pot of money and everybody wants a piece of it. But to know only two people in Oxfordshire have been given the drug makes it seem to me to be purely financial.”

The mother-of-two was first diagnosed with breast cancer on her 50th birthday in 1997, but after surgery and radiotherapy, she was free of the illness for five years.

But in 2002 she underwent chemotherapy after the cancer returned. She began to suffer back pains in 2007 and was told the cancer had spread to her bones.

NHS Oxfordshire agreed to let her take Lapatinib in conjunction with a course of chemotherapy in November 2008. She continued to take it until August last year.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says Lapatinib should only be prescribed in “exceptional circumstan-ces”. Only two out of six people who have applied for the drug in Oxfordshire since 2007 have been given it.

A fortnight ago, Nice postponed publication of new guidance on the drug’s use until a review of the cost-efficiency of alternatives.

The Department of Health said last week that it would strip Nice of the power to decide which drugs the NHS should fund, and pass such decisions to new GP-led commissioning consortia.

Nice will continue to provide advice on the effectiveness of treatments.

  • A fundraising beauty treatment and pampering event held at Witney fire station on Saturday to help Janet Hodges raised about £7,000. Her daughter Laura Hodges said: “It was a fantastic day. People were queuing outside the door.”