A cancer patient desperate for a promising new drug has been told she will not be given it at a Tyneside hospital - despite offering to pay for it herself.

Lung cancer sufferer Christine McKegney was willing buy the potentially life-extending tablets privately, but bosses at Gateshead's Queen Elizabeth Hospital have refused to administer the drug.

The 52-year-old mother-of-four and grandmother-of-two, from Heworth, Gateshead, is pinning her hopes on drug tarceva and her siblings have managed to scrape together the #1,800 needed for the first two months of treatment.

But health chiefs at the QE will not administer the drug for Christine with care paid for through the NHS because it has not been approved.

"It's a massive blow," said Christine, who lives with daughter Stephanie, 14, and son Richard, 27.

"I've been desperate to start taking this drug since my oncologist told me about it and I've been putting a lot of hope in it.

"To get the drug administered privately could cost more than #1,000 extra each month plus additional costs for things like scans, and we don't have that kind of money. We've already struggled to get the money for the tablets.

"All the hospital would need to do is monitor me, which they do anyway. I've done the difficult part by offering to buy the drugs."

Tarceva, also known by the brand name Erlotinib, has not been approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) but the organisation is currently reviewing the drug, which is readily available in Scotland and in the US.

The possibility of taking the drug has become a source of hope for Christine, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001 and immediately had half her right lung removed.

Christine thought she was rid of the disease but it came back in 2004 in both lungs and doctors told her it was terminal.

The grandmother, a former pub manager, had already lost her sister Ann in 1999 to lung cancer at the age of 42. And a year ago Christine's mother Sarah also died, aged 72, from lung cancer. Dad Sid died at 69 from cancer in 1997. Now Christine's brothers Michael, 51, and Ged, 47, and sister Shelagh, 44, want to try to stop her falling victim to the disease.

"I've been having chemotherapy for the past year and now it has finished," said Christine, who gave up smoking 10 years ago. "But my oncologist was really keen for me to try Tarceva.

"I knew the hospital would not fund it so my brothers and sister clubbed together and offered to pay for the first few treatments - enough to know whether it would work.

"The drug has been known to extend people's lives as well as shrink the tumours or keep them at bay.

"There is talk that NICE will approve the drug over the coming months but I might not have that long."

William Cuncliffe, medical director for cancer services at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Our policy for chemotherapy is to prescribe drugs with NICE approval. Erlotinib does not have NICE approval and has been rejected by the North East and Cumbria Cancer Drug Approval Group and is therefore not prescribed."