What an unjust twist of this anomaly that Jane Tomlinson, who dedicated so much of her precious time to raising money for the cancer charities as well as our local NHS Trust, should have been denied medication costing a paltry £6,000 that would possibly have given her more time with her young family because she happened to live in the wrong place.

And how typical of her unselfishness that she didn't want to make a fuss or be treated as a special case.

We can perhaps give the ministers and health chiefs who refused to meet Mike for a BBC Radio 5 programme the benefit of the doubt and accept that the time or circumstance were inconvenient.

But we can't leave it there – things have to change and a national body and funding needs to be set up to end this injustice and take such decisions out of the hands of local NHS Trusts with consultants being able to refer patients to a central decision making and funding arena.

I suggest a YEP-led campaign. We could start by flooding the mail boxes of all those ministers who refused to meet Mike with our comments.

When Jane ran the earth shook. Long may those vibrations continue.

Name and addess withheld

I am very reluctant to comment on Mike Tomlinson's view regarding the post code lottery of medical care. I do respect his anger.

However, I would not like government interference laying down the law on the precise treatments which are available over the whole country.

The government funding pot is not bottomless and individual authorities must be able to allocate treatment within their budget. It is better that various treatments are available somewhere rather than the possibility that the government either allows or denies completely sundry treatments within the realm.

I take his point that Glaxo-SmithKline had offered the drug, with some other resources, free for clinical trials but I am sure that those 'other resources' do not cover the full cost of clinical trials and it must be left to individual authorities to decide priorities.

If, after the clinical trials, the BMA authorises the drugs, it must still be down to local authorities to decide whether the costs are justified within their budget.

It is likely that there may be a similar drug which is, say, two-thirds as effective but at half the cost. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

However I am not an accountant, nor do I have any connection with either hospital or local government authorities.

This is just one man's opinion which will possibly put up many backs. I await the cries of rage.

B Perkins, Leeds