Treatment for rare lung disease only made available when sufferers ‘deteriorate’

Now, it’s a little known condition, but IPF – Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is a serious disease which has no cure, with a life-expectancy of only between two and five years after diagnosis. There are two drugs which slow down its progression.

But the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – or NICE – says sufferers have to deteriorate before they can be treated. Here’s our health and social care correspondent Victoria Macdonald