NICE have just announced that despite appeals from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Alzheimers Society the drugs that Anna has found useful over six years are not in future to be made available on the NHS for Alzheimer’s patients. The drugs help but they do not do much if at all to slow the progression of the disease, and so from a health economics argument they are not apparently value for money at £1000 per year. The social costs of increased dependency and confusion during the course of the disease are not important to take into account. (The associated social costs - £20-30,000 a year - are not the responsibility of the NHS, and so can be discounted.) I hope they use well the money that this will save.