A DOCTORS' leader has hit out at Government’s plans to allow patients receiving NHS care to pay privately for extra medicines.

North west representative of the British Medical Association, GP Kailash Chand, said the move would "penalise the poor, the sick and the old"

Dr Chand, who has a surgery in Ashton under Lyne, described it as "another nail in the coffin of universal health care".

Previously patients had been banned from paying for drugs while under NHS care. Anyone who did want to pay for drugs also had to pay for any other associated treatments,such as scans and x-rays privately effectively stepping out of the NHS system. In many cases the additional treatments cost £1,0000s more than the drugs themselves

This policy hit the headlines recently after two high-profile cases involving surrounding the cancer drug Sutent, which can increase the life expectancy of patients.

Music mogul Tony Wilson, who suffered from kidney cancer and died last year, was given the drug after famous friends from the industry agreed to foot the bill and pay for his treatment.

And last month terminally ill grandmother, Jean Murphy, won her battle with to force health bosses in Salford to pay for the drug – but only after an anonymous donor handed over £10,000.

She responded ‘exceptionally well’ to the treatment prompting Salford Primary Care Trust to change its their mind.

Dr Chan said: “Patient charges undermine the core principles of the NHS and a system that allowed top-up payments would be regressive in that it would penalise the poor, the sick and the old, the most frequent users.”

Dr Chand added that he believed the system would reduce the NHS to only providing basic services with more expensive treatments only being available to the wealthy.