VICTIMS of Alzheimer's disease face a postcode lottery to get treatment in East Lancashire, according to pressure groups.

Local patients are less likely to get drugs which may improve their lives than elsewhere in the North West -- and patients at Blackburn hospitals are more likely to lose out than at Burnley General.

The disease, which affects more than 5,000 East Lancashire people, gradually robs sufferers of speech, memory and other skills, but the new treatment -- a group of drugs called cholinsterase inhibitors -- seem to slow down the disease in clinical trials.

Experts aren't sure if they will change patients' lives, but some sufferers are convinced they work.

Campaigners have criticised the situation but East Lancashire health bosses has said it was not just a financial issue and they were not convinced that they were not convinced that the drug was effective.

East Lancashire Health Authority has advised doctors not to prescribe the drugs, which cost about £1,000 a year per patient, and aren't funding prescriptions unless patients take part in research.

Despite this, Burnley Healthcare NHS Trust has decided to allow consultants to prescribe the drugs where needed and pay for it themselves -- it's now costing them about £60,000 a year.

Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust also decided to fund patients in a medicine for the elderly clinic, but has not yet decided whether to fund patients in the mental health unit memory clinic, which is still being developed. About 25 patients are taking the drugs.

Catherine Slough, North West representative of the Alzheimer's Disease Society, said it was no way to provide treatment.

She said a number of health authorities throughout the country had allocated large sums of cash to the treatment. She said the North West Lancashire Health Authority had allocated £100,000 towards the drug while Manchester Health Authority has decided to allow unlimited prescribing from their budget.

Ms Slough said: "Access to these medicines is patchy and inconsistent. Our members say these drugs are beneficial, some even feel it's reversed the symptoms, especially those who were prescribed it early."

She said the cost of the drugs was tiny compared to the cost of caring for people who could no longer look after themselves -- nursing homes can cost £500 a week.

Former Blackburn teacher David Lindsay-Coggins, whose wife Moira was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 10 years ago, said his gut feeling was that the drugs should be made available, although they come too late to help Moira. She was a brilliant linguist and now cannot speak, and barely recognises her husband.

He said: "When Moira was first diagnosed we tried everything, including homeopathy and other therapies. Now the only drug I can give her is love.

"It's terrible not to be able to do anything -- you feel so impotent. The sad thing seems to be that in some cases it seems to be a case of where you live as to whether you get the drugs or not."

The drugs are currently being reviewed by a Government body and Dr Stephen Morton, of the East Lancashire Health Authority, said they may reconsider their policy if it was decided they were worthwhile.

He said: "This is not just a financial issue. We don't know whether this is a useful drug or which groups could benefit. We also don't know what side-effects there could be."