R (Pfizer Ltd) v Secretary of State for Health
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Simon Brown,Lord Justice Buxton,Lord Justice Carnwath |
| Judgment Date | 06 November 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWCA Civ 1566 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C/2002/0860 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 06 November 2002 |
COURT OF APPEAL
Before Lord Justice Simon Brown, Lord Justice Buxton and Lord Justice Carnwath
Health - National Health Service funds - choosing between priorities - a political decision - prescriptions - Viagra - affordability - Council Directive 89/105/EEC (OJ 1989 L40/8) Article 7
Affordability in the sense of choosing between competing priorities as to where National Health Service funds should be allocated was a political decision to be taken by government.
Thus when the Secretary of State for Health restricted the prescription on the NHS of any product he was not required by article 7 of Council Directive 89/105/EEC (OJ 1989 L40/8), the Transparency Directive, to conduct analysis of competing priorities on a non-political basis nor to conduct any other form of analysis or explanation.
The Court of Appeal so stated when giving its reasons for dismissing on October 28, 2002 the appeal of Pfizer Ltd against the decision of Mr Justice Turner on April 18, 2002 to dismiss its application for judicial review of a decision by the secretary of state on October 10, 2001, and further explained in letters of January 18 and March 27, 2002, to maintain the policy restricting the circumstances in which certain drugs, most notably Pfizer's product sildenafil (Viagra), could be prescribed on the NHS for the treatment of erectile dysfunction.
The restriction limited such prescriptions to those already being treated for impotence prior to September 1998, those suffering also from certain specified medical conditions and those being treated by hospital specialists.
Mr David Pannick, QC and Mr Michael Fordham for Pfizer; Mr Michael Beloff, QC and Ms Dinah Rose for the secretary of state.
LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN said that the secretary of state's letters made it plain that the decision to restrict the use of Viagra was not based on its clinical or cost-effectiveness but rather on the secretary of state's assessing the need it addressed as having a lower priority than other calls on NHS funds. That assessment involved an essentially political judgment.
Mr Pannick submitted that while certainly providing a sufficient answer to any domestic law challenge, that did not satisfy article 7 of Council Directive 89/105/EEC relating to the transparency of measures regulating the pricing of medicinal products for human use and their inclusion in the scope of national health insurance...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
The Justiciability of Resource Allocation
...way to state that had ¢nancial constraints been a relevant aspect of the9 [1999] 2 AC 418, 430, [1998] 3 W LR12 60.10 [2002] EWCACiv1566, [2003]1 CMLR19 at [8^9]. See also K. Syrett,‘Impotence or Importance?Judicial Reviewin an Era of Explicit NHS Rationing’ (2004) 67MLR 289.11 [2006] EWCAC......
-
Impotence or Importance? Judicial Review in an Era of Explicit NHS Rationing
...theearlier case of RvSecretary of Statefor Health, ex p P¢zer Ltd.6Collins J ruled that itsnUniversityof Bristol.1 [2002] EWCACiv 1566;[2003] 1 CMLR19.Referred to hereafter as P¢zer.2 For an informative survey of developments in a variety of health systems, see A. Coulter andC. Ham (eds),Th......
-
Deconstructing Deliberation in the Appraisal of Medical Technologies: NICEly Does it?
...Clinical Excellenceand itsValue Judgements’(2004) 329 BMJ 224 and, for judicial con¢rmation,R(P¢zerLimited)vSecretary of Statefor Health [2003] 1CMLR 19at [16](Simon Brown LJ).40 NICE, LegalContext of NICEGuidance (London: NICE, 2004) 3.41 n 39 above,at [7].42 NICE, Response to the Reportof......