Sarah Sweet, of Membland Court, Plymouth, writes:

On November 6, MPs will have the chance to support an important piece of legislation that could benefit hundreds of thousands of patients across the UK.

The Off-patent Drugs Bill would improve access to low-cost, effective treatments for a range of conditions, from breast cancer to multiple sclerosis, and I would urge our local MP to support it.

The bill would ensure that drugs that have fallen out of patent, but have since proved effective for clinical uses ­outside their original licence, would be routinely available on the NHS.

With these drugs often

being very low-cost, it makes ­economic as well as clinical sense for them to be more ­widely available.

Backed by Breast Cancer Now, the UK’s largest breast cancer charity, along with

a host of other charities, ­including Prostate Cancer UK, the Alzhiemer’s Society and Bloodwise, the bill needs 100 MPs to vote in favour to take it to the next stage.

With just days left until

the vote, more work needs to

be done to secure the parliamentary support it needs to ­succeed.

Time is running out, so as well as calling on our MP to back this bill, which would help hundreds of thousands of patients, I would ask others to join me and add their support to the campaign by visiting breastcancernow.org/unlock drugs.