TV review: The Price of Life | Spain: Paradise Lost

Published on Wednesday 17 June 2009 19:38

THE PRICE OF LIFE, BBC2 SPAIN: PARADISE LOST, ITV

FOR those struggling with its decisions, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has an unfortunate acronym: Nice. The body which rules on which drugs the NHS can afford has to make choices that aren't at all nice, literally deciding who is worth keeping alive for how long, at what cost.

The Price Of Life, a documentary by Adam Wishart, was the first to be allowed proper access to Nice, although the programme didn't make it clear that Scotland has its own body which doesn't always agree with Nice's rulings. Nevertheless, this was an interesting programme and the issues raised must generally apply here as well.

Wishart followed the approval process for one cancer drug, Revlimid. The patients desperately hoping to be allowed to take it naturally wanted it passed. Some of the NHS managers didn't, feeling the money could be better spent elsewhere, on providing palliative care for the dying at home, for instance. Figures were confusingly thrown around. Would it cost 25,000 to give each sufferer another year of life, or 47,000? Should the formula be changed to reflect that a year for a dying person is worth more than an average year to someone else? And should it matter how old the patient is, whether they've already "had their life"?

As Wishart carefully interviewed those involved, it was hard to decide and, like him, I was glad that I didn't have to. Professor David Barnett, the chairman of the Nice appraisals committee, is also a heart surgeon and, in a way, what they do is a bureaucratic version of the principle of triage: prioritising by severity and the ability to save.

But it was easy to be disgusted at the big pharmaceutical companies raking in millions from the drugs and insisting that without market profits no medical research could continue. No-one told Alexander Fleming that.

It's tempting at this time of year, especially if you've just returned from somewhere abroad, to wish that you could live on a permanent holiday. Imagine taking sunshine for granted and being that relaxed, curious holiday self all the time. But for most it's not really an option, so Spain: Paradise Lost was a handy slice of consolatory schadenfreude for anyone who's ever wished they didn't have to get on the return flight.

The Spanish property market collapsed, just like ours, which is bad news for those Britons who bought the apartments which sprang up in the boom years, thinking they'd be both an escape and an investment.

There have been repossessions, unfinished developments overflowing with sewage and a glut of empty flats which gaze sadly out to sea (or, at least, out to a small, faraway patch of blue, past lots of other concrete blocks). Some who have poured their savings into their dream home are now bitterly regretting it.

As in Britain, the banks recklessly lent to anyone with "a pulse and a passport" (as a woman who runs property auctions for those facing repossessions put it). It's all part of the unpleasant awakening so many have had recently, albeit under a stronger sun.

This rather flimsy programme, however, didn't really reveal anything new and there was an awful lot of filler, particularly about an undeterred woman just about to make the move. She spent ages being shown around various properties for sale in the falling market but, in the end, didn't actually buy one after all, so it seemed a bit pointless.