Paying for your own drugs or treatment

You may choose to pay for your treatment yourself. This usually includes the cost of treatment, drugs and all the care you receive. Cancer treatments can cost thousands of pounds so this would be a serious decision and one to discuss with your doctor and family or friends. Your doctor would still need to agree to prescribe the medicine or treatment.

When you agree to pay for your treatment privately, this only applies to the one condition. If you have private cancer treatment and then develop a totally different condition you could have it treated on the NHS or privately.

Private health insurance is also an option, but only if you have a pre-existing policy. Some policies do not include certain treatments for cancer or may not fund more than one course of this type of treatment. Your insurer will be able to give you more detailed information based on your individual situation.

Co-payment (or top-up payments)

Co-payment is when a patient having treatment on the NHS pays privately to have a drug that isn't available to them on the NHS. People can do this by paying for it themselves or through an existing insurance policy. Some insurance companies have policies to fund drugs, which are given alongside another treatment, but aren't available on the NHS.

For example, a person may have their chemotherapy treatment on the NHS and another cancer drug privately. With copayment you would only have to pay for the private treatment.

Previously in England PCTs had been told by the Department of Health that patients could not have a combination of private and NHS treatment at the same time to treat one condition (like cancer). You either had to pay for all of your treatment on the NHS or pay for everything (treatments, drugs, care) privately.

This policy was changed in November 2008. The Department of Health's current advice to PCTs in England is that patients can pay to have drugs not available on the NHS while continuing with their NHS treatment. As well as paying for the cost of the drugs given outside the NHS they also have to pay for the costs related to giving these drugs. This includes staff time and any tests and scans associated with the extra care.

The Department of Health recommend that people using co-payment should be given the drug or treatment in a different area to where NHS treatment is given. This could be at another hospital or in a private area in a ward or clinic at their usual hospital. Co-payment should only be used when other means of getting a drug on the NHS (such as exceptional funding) have been looked at.

Scotland and Wales are now giving careful consideration to the advice given to PCTs in England. In Scotland, patients cannot have private and NHS care together in NHS hospitals. The advice from the Chief Medical Officer about copayment is that there should be good links with private hospitals. This is to make sure the treatment, which is being paid for, can be safely provided in a private hospital

There may be variations on how copayment is dealt with across the UK. Talk to your specialist and find out what the situation is in your PCT or health board. Your specialist will explain how any requests to pay for all, or part, of your treatment are dealt with locally.