The price of some drugs is often the deciding factor when it comes to their availability on the NHS. Some are ruled not to be cost-effective, which is the reason behind the National Institute of Clinical Excellence's controversial recent recommendation for the withdrawal of drugs used to treat Alzheimer's disease from its approved list.

Mrs Dorothy Gale, of Silsden, is hoping that NICE will take a more sympathetic view of the chemotherapy drug oxaliplatin when she presents the case for it to its panel of doctors, clinicians and experts today. Mrs Gale, who is battling colon and liver cancer, believes this drug has already given her an extra year of life, but she had to buy it privately at a cost of £15,000. Understandably, she wants fellow patients to have the same chance, but on the NHS.

Despite the advances in treatment in recent years, cancer remains a distressing disease. Anything which can extend life and improve the quality of it is bound to be sought-after by victims and their families.

Many of these drugs are very expensive to develop. It is reasonable that the drugs companies should want to recoup their costs. However, it is particularly cruel when they come up with drugs which can make a big difference to people's lives but can't be supplied to them on the NHS because they are too expensive.

So it is important that every effort should be made by the Department of Health to negotiate tough deals with the manufacturers which would allow them to be made available through hospitals without patients having to use up their savings or even sell their homes to buy them privately.