[e-drug] Drugs for life threatening illness and other categories (3)

[valeria.frighi@doctors.org.uk]

 E-DRUG: Drugs for life threatening illness and other categories (3)
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Dear Lenny,

1) Life threatening illnesses

This is a huge question requiring an articulate answer which I 
don't feel like getting into. As a pragmatical suggestion, you could 
try to find out what drugs are totally reimbursed by National Health 
Systems in some European countries. For instance, in Italy, drugs 
in the "Class A" band are totally paid for by the NHS (with the 
exception of a prescription charge, from which various categories 
of people are exempted anyway ) as they are deemed "life saving 
drugs". Obviously, there are consumer groups protesting about the 
exclusion of certain drugs, which they see as life savers (and I 
personally agree about some of these) , from the band A group. 
So, it's not perfect but it could be a start.

2) Therapeutical categories

Use  the online British National Formulary (registration is free), a 
true  Aladdin cave

3) Information on specific drugs

Use the electronic medicines compendium at 
http://emc.medicines.org.uk/ which contains the summary of 
product charcteristics

Hope this helps,

Valeria

Dr Valeria Frighi
Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism
Churchill Hospital
Oxford
OX3 7LJ
UK

Tel 07974920013
Fax # 44 1865 85731
<valeria.frighi@doctors.org.uk>