内容摘要：That has been welcomed by Marie Curie, but it said more needed to be done.

That has been welcomed by Marie Curie, but it said more needed to be done.

Dr Rossi says NICE changed how it assessed severe diseases in 2022, introducing a new system, known as a severity modifier, because it felt that decisions under the previous method disproportionately favoured cancer.For this group of patients, Enhertu got a “medium” severity rating, which wasn't enough to tip the scales in their favour.

Dr Rossi is adamant that under the old system, patients would be getting the drug on the NHS.He pinpoints one issue: the new approach had to be "opportunity cost neutral" - in other words, including a wider range of diseases without extra NHS spending.He is concerned the severity modifier could make it harder to launch future cancer drugs.

He says the only way to fix this is for the Department of Health and Social Care to allow more flexibility.Another cancer drug for incurable blood cancer myeloma has been rejected too. Shelagh McKinlay, from the charity Myeloma UK, says the bar to get treatments approved “has been raised impossibly high”.

“We simply should not be here,” she says. “It’s hugely unfair for someone who could live less than 24 months without treatment to be denied the very thing that could give them more time with their loved ones because of a change to the system.”

But Helen Knight, NICE’s director of medicines evaluation, argues that the severity modifier is working. She says it has meant treatments for conditions like cystic fibrosis and hepatitis B are getting NHS funding.UKHarvest said it aims to provide food for up to 40 people per school.

Clare Corbitt, a mother of two from Chichester who has begun using the initiative, said it was a “fantastic idea”.“My two daughters decided together what food to use in our dinner that evening, and what we could use up for breakfast and lunch the next day,” she said.

“It's a massive help for me, and lovely to see the children come up with meal ideas."Ms Ellis, deputy headteacher at Birdham CE Primary School, said the scheme was not a food bank.