MULTIPLE sclerosis a doubly brutal disease; as well as limiting the ability of sufferers and their families to live full and vibrant lives, the grim lack of viable treatments means doctors and nurses often have little hope to offer.

With this in mind, it is difficult to understand why health boards in Scotland, which has one of the highest rates of the condition on the planet, appear so reluctant to give patients funding to travel to England to see whether they would be suitable for a potentially life-changing stem cell transplant on the NHS.

Freedom of Information (FIO) enquiries by the Herald have established that at least 59 MS patients in England have undergone Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (AHSCT) on the NHS at hospitals in London and Sheffield, a procedure that, according to recent international studies, has shown impressive results. And it’s not only academics noting positive outcomes from the therapy; patients in Scotland desperate to try the treatment have paid tens of thousands of pounds to travel as far afield as Mexico and Russia to undergo the procedure, and have subsequently reported real and lasting improvements.

Despite this evidence, further FIO investigations reveal that no Scottish patients have been sent to London for the treatment, with those seeking referrals being told their health boards do not fund “experimental” treatments. And yet the English NHS does appear to deem AHSCT worthy for funding, surely highlighting a worrying postcode lottery that must be nothing sort of torturous for MS sufferers who would do anything to improve their health.

To add insult to injury, the bureaucracy all too often sends them round in circles, with the Scottish Government claiming they do send patients for “specialised” treatments in other countries - which one would assume includes England - on an ad hoc basis, but adding it’s up to health boards and clinicians, who then say the treatment is “experimental” and thus doesn’t qualify.

Clearly, all our health boards are under serious financial constraints during this time of continuing austerity, and must make increasingly difficult decisions about who and what treatments to fund across the entire spectrum of healthcare. Indeed, how to deal with this situation going forward is arguably one of the biggest questions faced by society.

But that will be of little comfort to the Scottish MS patients who see a potentially viable treatment that could transform their quality of life denied to them. And with this in mind, it’s surely time for our health boards - and indeed Health Secretary Shona Robison - to look again at AHSCT in light of both the medical and anecdotal evidence.

With so many MS patients being young people in the prime of their lives, surely they at least deserve the chance to see whether this treatment may work for them. After all, what price quality of life?