CONSERVATIVE Party plans to fund cancer drugs on the NHS even if they are not approved by the UK’s medicine advisory board were welcomed yesterday by Gwent cancer sufferers.

Patients and their families said they would support a Tory pledge to give patients treatments that are licensed and widely available in Europe but have not been approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The £200 million a year initiative would be funded using savings the NHS would make if the Conservatives shelved Labour proposals to increase National Insurance payments.

But think-tank the King's Fund criticised the plans yesterday, saying money would have to be drawn away from other important areas of the NHS while Labour, which set up Nice in 1999, argue decisions about cancer drugs should be made on clear information about the benefits of a particular drug.

Blackwood cancer survivor Bridget Mcnally, who has fought the disease four times and was recently awarded an MBE for her fundraising for Cancer Research UK, said she would welcome any move that tackled the funding lottery for cancer treatment.

Miss Mcnally said: “We are all tax payers and should all be treated the same.”

Rebecca Gardiner, whose mother Carole Davies from Caerleon had to dip into her life savings to pay for breast cancer drug Tarceva before she died in June 2007, also said she would support the Tory initiative.

She said: “Provided the patient and clinician giving the drug were aware it had not been approved by Nice, I think it would be absolutely fantastic.”

But Nick Thomas, deputy head teacher at Newbridge Comprehensive School who is currently undergoing treatment for incurable bone marrow cancer after winning a £20,000 funding battle for the life-lengthening drug Mozobil, said it was important the Conservative plans did not drain funds from other areas of the NHS.

Mr Thomas, 49, said: ‘I would be very pleased, but I wouldn’t want to see them robbing Peter to save Paul. It should not be at the cost of other research and treatment programmes."