WORCESTER cancer patients have hit out at the “postcode lottery” in the battle to get free prescription drugs.

A report published on Wednesday by Macmillan Cancer Research revealed almost half of cancer patients have had to cut back on food and heating because of this “tax in illness”.

Prescriptions are free for everyone in Wales and will be free in Scotland from 2011 but patients in England could have to pay £7.10 per item. Cancer patients may be on several types of medication which can prove costly because some treat the cancer itself and others treat the side-effects.

Father-of-three Eric Williams, aged 55, a skin cancer survivor of Charter Place, off Castle Street, Worcester, said: “It’s ridiculous that we have a national Government yet we have a postcode lottery or, in this case, a regional lottery.

“Once again it is England lagging behind. I think it’s wrong that patients should have to pay.”

Mr Williams, who was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma, had the tumour successfully removed in 2004.

Rachel Hay, aged 48, of Lower Wick, Worcester, is now in remission for breast cancer after she underwent radiotherapy following her diagnosis last August.

Mrs Hay, head of in-patients at St Richard’s Hospice in Worcester, said: “I think it is unfair to charge patients in England when it is free in Scotland and Wales. I think it should be free.”

A spokesman for Worcester-shire Primary Care Trust, the main provider of the county’s health services, said: “We have a great deal of sympathy with patients with long term conditions at a time when the price of living is rising. They are often elderly or on low incomes and least able to afford inflation.

“Fortunately, most cancer patients, about 88 per cent, are eligible for free prescriptions. And for those who are not there are schemes such as the prescription prepayment certificate that can reduce the cost to as little as £2 per week for an unlimited number of prescriptions.”