Patients are being condemned to blindness as health trusts refuse to fund a drug that could save their sight.

According to a recent report, sufferers of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are being denied Macugen, the only licensed drug in the UK to treat the condition.

The report by the AMD Alliance also shows Richmond Primary Care Trust (PCT) is among 90 per cent of trusts in the UK who have failed to fund the treatment.

Steve Winyard, head of campaigns at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) said: "This report confirms what we have long suspected and what wet AMD patients have been telling us - that PCTs are refusing to fund a licensed treatment, even though it could save patients' sight."

Macugen became available in May 2006 and since then only five PCTs nationwide are partially funding the treatment.

Use of Macugen is awaiting guidance from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice), which provides advice to health professionals on the use of drugs and treatments. But the Department of Health has advised that individual patients should not be refused treatment on this basis.

Minister of State for the Department of Health, Andy Burnham, said: "Patients should not be refused a treatment simply because guidance from Nice is unavailable."

Wet AMD accounts for more than half of registered blindness and affects 250,000 people in the UK. A further 26,000 develop the condition every year.

An RNIB spokesman said: "The condition seriously compromises people's lives.

"With wet AMD you can become blind in as little as three months."

The situation is leaving patients with the bleak prospect of paying for private treatment - at a cost of between £10,700 and £25,000 per year - or going blind.

The condition affects central vision and can destroy the ability to read, drive, shop and recognise faces. The report also suggests that the emotional impact of wet AMD blindness can be devastating, with patients at increased risk of depression and suicide.

A spokesman from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCO) said: "When people do lose their sight it really is the most devastating thing that can happen to a person. We support the use of such drugs to treat wet AMD."

Mr Winyard added: "We have a real chance now to turn wet AMD into a largely treatable condition. But only if it is detected and treated promptly.

"Health officials are only fooling themselves if they think they can save money by refusing to fund the treatments."

However, experts are warning that should the drug receive funding then the Government will also need to inject cash into the hospital infrastucture to help it cope with demand for the treatment.

The RCO spokesman said: "Otherwise, administering these effective new drugs will be at the expense of other patients with cataracts, glaucoma and diabetes."

A Richmond PCT spokesman said the trust is awaiting Nice guidelines on the use of Macugen and individual requests for the drug would be dealt with on a case by case basis.

The RNIB urges the public to take regular eye tests, particularly as people may be unaware of the early stages of wet AMD.