WET AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION

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That this House deplores the decision by NICE in its latest consultation document to erect new barriers to the treatment of patients suffering from wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by restricting modern treatment to those with pure classic lesions only, despite the clear finding of its own appraisal committee that photodynamic therapy improves the chance of avoiding loss of vision by at least 15 letters on a sight-test board over a period of two years; therefore considers the NICE recommendation that modern treatment is used for most patients only as part of ongoing or new clinical trials to be reckless, given that there are no such ongoing trials and that, in any event, to treat the control group in a new trial with placebos would be unethical; notes that patients are purchasing the therapy privately in order to try to ensure that they do not go blind; and calls on the Government to put an end to this NICE process and ensure that the 5000 mainly elderly patients affected each year by wet AMD receive the best available treatment.