A 14-year-old girl is being “denied a normal teenage life” because the NHS is refusing to fund an operation to ease her chronic stomach condition, MPs have been told.
Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow has accused bureaucrats at NHS England of “playing a game of pass the parcel” with Sutton schoolgirl Lauren Dobbe, who suffers from gastroparesis and has to be fed through a tube.
The former health minister took up Lauren’s case and presented a petition to Parliament in a bid to force the NHS to pay for a £17,000 “gastric pacemaker” to ease her constant pain.
He said NHS England was “causing unnecessary suffering and misery” to Lauren and her family, and called on it to give her “the most precious gift at Christmas — a normal teenage life”.
It is the latest stage of a campaign that has seen Ms Dobbe’s father James petition David Cameron for the operation to be made available across the NHS.
Mr Burstow told the Standard: “The family have a growing sense of frustration that Lauren’s teenage years are being lost because she is being tube-fed.
"They are doing everything to keep everything as normal as they can. They have started petitions and are fundraising to get the procedure done privately. It’s absurd that it has come to this.”
Four specialists have said a gastric stimulator would allow Lauren to eat normally. But NHS England has told the family they must reapply as the care is only provided in the Midlands.
Mr Burstow added: “I’m trying to shame NHS England into do the right thing. This procedure is not delivered in many parts of the country, but that is exactly the sort of thing NHS England was set up to avoid.
Read More
"They have created administrative boundaries for their own convenience, which are now being used as a reason to deny treatment.”
NHS England said: “While NHS England is unable to comment on individual cases, we do understand the difficulties patients with life-changing diseases and their families go through when making decisions about treatment.
“We have to make difficult decisions about which treatments to fund and this means carefully scrutinising all available evidence on their effectiveness. We follow NICE Technology Appraisal Guidance and clinical trial evidence in making these decisions.”
