title: Lifestyle treatments in cystic fibrosis: The NHS should pay.
abstract: With the NHS under increasing financial pressure and healthcare costs soaring year on year, it is perhaps not surprising that assessment agencies focus on cost-effectiveness analysis when assessing new therapies. Such an approach does not however, always take sufficient account of treatment burden, lifestyle and patient choice and therefore new equally effective but perhaps "easier to take" formulations and faster delivery systems for current therapies do not always take precedence in current treatment guidelines. In arguing that the NHS should pay for so-called lifestyle treatments in cystic fibrosis the counterintuitive nature of some of the current decision making is discussed and a more holistic approach to improve NHS efficiency is presented.
authors.affiliation: All Wales Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre. University Hospital Llandough, Penlan Road, Penarth. CF64 2XX. Electronic address: Ian.ketchell@wales.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Robert Ian
authors.initials: RI
authors.lastname: Ketchell
mesh_terms: D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000628:therapy*; D004739:England; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D011788:Quality of Life; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics*
keywords: Adherence; Cost-effectiveness; Cystic fibrosis; Inhaled therapies; Lifestyle treatments; Treatment burden