CANCER charities have formally appealed to the NHS spending watchdog over its decision to remove a potentially life-saving cancer treatment from the health service in England and Wales.

Tecartus was made available for people with a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma through the NHS’s cancer drugs fund as data collection on its benefits continued.

It is the only therapy available for people with mantle cell lymphoma, a blood cancer that affects about 600 people a year in Britain.

But the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (Nice), the body which approves cost-efficient medicines and treatments, recommended against rolling it out on the NHS after finding the therapy did not “work as well in clinical practice as it did in trials.”

Charities Blood Cancer UK, Lymphoma Action and Anthony Nolan are formally appealing today against the decision amid concerns for patients with “very limited alternatives.”

The groups branded the decision a “backward step for NHS care.”

Dr Rubina Ahmed of Blood Cancer UK said that the therapy “offers a last hope of a cure” for some, adding: “It’s vital that advances in blood cancer treatment are reflected in the options available to people in practice.”

Emily John, a specialist nurse at Anthony Nolan, said she has seen first hand how Tecartus has transformed the lives of patients living with mantle cell lymphoma, “offering them a lifeline when other treatment options haven’t worked.”

Paul Madley, 66, from Cardiff, was diagnosed with stage-four mantle cell lymphoma in 2021. After multiple rounds of chemotherapy, he entered remission, but his cancer returned in July 2024.

“This treatment is helping to prolong lives of people like me. Without it, goodness knows where I would be,” he said.

A Nice spokesperson said the organisation welcomed the appeal and highlighted that anyone who has begun the treatment will be able to complete it.