WE support the Government's money and good intentions that are pouring into the health service. Along with that money and those good intentions comes reform, which is necessary.

But our front page story this morning calls into question the effectiveness of one of the reforms already introduced.

The principle behind the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is itself excellent. NICE is a non-political body set up to decide which drugs are available to every NHS patient. This is supposed to stop the postcode lottery, whereby some patients in some areas are prescribed a drug while patients elsewhere are not, and it is supposed to shield the Department for Health from accusations that it is rationing drugs for purely cost reasons.

But Ann Tittley's case suggests that, far from making the situation better, NICE is making it worse.

Ann's drug Glivec was trialled in the North-East three years ago, and was successful and safe enough to be given a licence last November, which allows doctors to prescribe it.

But only now is NICE on the verge of making a decision about whether Glivec should be available to all on the NHS.

In the meantime, the postcode lottery has thrived as individual parts of the country make individual decisions on whether to prescribe Glivec. For example, we understand that Teesside leukaemia sufferers are far more likely to get it than others elsewhere in the North-East.

In fact, the lottery has got even worse. Ann has shown that if you are a patient with strength and fighting spirit - and, because of their condition, not all seriously-ill people can muster these qualities - and if you are lucky enough to have a doctor who is willing to put his head above the parapet, then you can make a loud enough fuss which will ensure that your number comes up.

Your chances in this lottery would appear to be enhanced if you live in the Prime Minister's constituency and in the circulation area of a newspaper like The Northern Echo with a powerful voice.

If NICE really is necessary - and as doctors have been using Glivec without NICE's advice for the last three years, so its role has to be questioned - its operation has to be speeded up so that the current postcode lottery is replaced by a truly national health service.