HEALTH campaigner Barry Attwood, who tried to secure a cancer drug for his dying brother-in-law, has been appointed to a body advising Britain's medicines watchdog.

Andrew Melville, from Hanley, succumbed to his lung cancer in February after health officials refused him the Tarceva tablets. But Mr Attwood vowed to keep up the fight for other patients to have it prescribed.

Now that the National Institute of Clinical Excellent (NICE) has approved the drug to be freely available on the NHS, Mr Attwood, aged 64, of Meir Park, will join its committee to look at all new lung cancer drugs coming on stream.

He was nominated to be patient/carer member of NICE's lung cancer guideline development group by the Roy Castle Foundation, which backed Mr Melville's struggle for Tarceva.

And he hopes to use his influence to speed up the time it takes NICE to rule on whether a drug is cost effective.

He said: "At present, it takes between 18 and 30 months from a drug being referred to a decision being taken.

"But with lung cancer, which has such a poor prognosis, every month is vital. In Andrew's case, the decision was made much too late for him.

"In fact, while a decision is pending, a postcode lottery can develop with some primary care trusts funding drugs and others refusing.

"So the quicker we get them through the system, the less chance of that happening."

Father-of-two Mr Attwood also hopes to try and remove the stigma he feels is given to lung cancer patients.

"This happens because there is bias within the NHS against people who smoke," said the third-year Geography degree student at Staffordshire University.

"If I can do anything to break that down by being a member of the group, I will be delighted."

His initial membership is for 18 months from February and besides being sent all the paperwork on each new treatment or drug for lung cancer, he will attend monthly meetings in Cardiff to vote on what to recommend to NICE.

He said: "I will be sitting alongside physicians, surgeons and pharmacologists and a second patient/carer representative.

"I am there to give the perspective of patients and their families so I will be able to tap into all we went through with Andrew – but that doesn't mean I will automatically say that all new drugs should be approved.

"Some prices being charged by the drug companies are huge so we will be a force in trying to bring them down and make them more affordable for the NHS. I shall be treating each drug on its own merit. The job may seem daunting but the group will have to heed what I say as I will have the full backing of the cancer charities."

Mr Melville, aged 50, died in February hours after attending a sponsored walk to raise money to buy Tarceva privately after it had been refused by North Staffordshire PCT.

It was part of a campaign by his family to collect the £1,400 monthly cost of the drug. The money has now been donated to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.