NICE MAN GETS KNIGHTHOOD

Andrew Dillon, the man who has introduced the system of legalised euthanasia to pay for the bank bailout, has been awarded a knighthood! He was awarded a CBE in 2003 after just a few years in the job at NICE. Curiously the top man at the NHS David Nicholson is also to be knighted. The Liverpool Care Pathway has been introduced under Nicholson. Also to be knighted is Professor Michael Richards. After seven years as Cancer Tsar who can we blame for the very poor performance in deaths from cancer? Dillon's been at NICE for ten years. Nicholson at the NHS for 25 years and CEO for more than 3 years.

This is not right. We are at the bottom of the league tables for deaths from cancer and yet the Cancer Tsar and the top men who decide who lives and who dies from cancer are being knighted.

But how else can we pay for the bank bailout besides killing people a la Adolf Hitler?

So after ten years in the job why is Dillon being knighted?

Pat on the back for the man from NICE

There was also anger last night after the boss of Health Service rationing body NICE was awarded a knighthood for 'services to healthcare'.

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence, was given the honour after ten years in charge of the quango which decides which drugs can be made available on the NHS.

It comes on top of the CBE he was awarded in 2003.

The announcement was criticised by groups representing patients whose lives have been blighted by decisions made by Sir Andrew's organisation.

One said he had been given a 'pat on the back' by ministers who were grateful he was taking the 'flak' for unpopular decisions.

Experts blame NICE for the fact that after 12 years of Labour rule and the trebling of NHS funding Britain still languishes near the bottom of European cancer survival tables.

Those at risk of dementia and blindness have also seen drugs which could have benefited them turned down because they were not deemed 'cost effective'.

Roger Goss of Patient Concern said: 'NICE was always about limiting the amount that is spent by the NHS, and a lot of patients have lost out because Mr Dillon has done his job so effectively.'

Kate Spall set up the Pamela Northcott Fund to represent those with rarer forms of cancer after her mother was denied a drug for kidney cancer. She said NICE had refused seven drugs for rarer cancers in 2009 alone.

'When NICE was set up, its remit was to speed up access to drugs and to promote innovation in treatment. In my experience this has not happened, and NICE has failed in its duty of care to cancer patients,' she said.

'NICE always was a shield and this is just a pat on the back for taking the flak for putting in place a system which blocks access to cancer drugs.'

Only last month NICE faced criticism after it said a bowel cancer drug available in Europe would not be available on the NHS.

It claimed Avastin, which can extend life by almost two years, was not cost effective.

But governments in France, Germany, Italy and Scandinavian nations, as well as Australia and Canada, all meet the cost.

Also in November, NICE rejected the use of a liver cancer drug Nexavar on the NHS - even though it gives patients six months' extra life.

And two years ago, NICE turned down three drugs for Alzheimer's patients, even though they cost just £2.50 a day.

The organisation has also been accused of handing a 'death sentence' to 1,700 patients with advanced kidney disease each year who will be deprived of four life-extending drugs.

One, Sutent, which costs around £24,000 a year, can double life expectancy to 28 months.

[source : New Year's Honour for the police chief in charge of the bungled Stockwell shooting, The Daily Mail 31/12/2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239508/No-gongs-money-grabbers-City-Westminster-miss-stars-sportsmen-honours-list.html]



Other curious awards go to Cressida Dick, who managed the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, and Timothy Dowse, an alleged expert in weapons who was previously head of counter-proliferation at the FCO and significantly involved in the farcical invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He [Dowse] recently admitted to the Chilcott inquiry into the conflict that Saddam Hussein was not close to Al-Qaeda and that some of the intelligence information may have been mis-interpreted in the weeks before the war.

[source : Andrew Dillon, Nice chief executive, knighted in New Year's honours, The Daily Telegraph, 31/12/2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6912191/Andrew-Dillon-Nice-chief-executive-knighted-in-New-Years-honours.html]

One word comes to mind : LIMEADE!