A multiple sclerosis sufferer denied funding for chemotherapy has been told he can now have the cash for the treatment.

Ian Williams, 33, from Pontypool, will now have the treatment he desperately needs to help ease his crippling condition.

Mr Williams has suffered from multiple sclerosis for five years but it worsened over the last year.

He was told by his consultant that the best way forward would be to take a course of the expensive chemotherapy drug mitoxantrone.

A year's course of the drug costs between £7,000 and £9,000.

But there was simply not enough money available, according to Cardiff and Vale Health Trust.

Mr Williams' consultant at the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff, Dr Neil Roberts, said there was no more money available for patients needing the high cost drugs.

He said at the time: "We were allocated funding from the Assembly three years ago to improve the provision of MS services - but the majority of it went on improving the general infrastructure, not providing the high-cost drugs of the type Mr Williams needs."

Dr Roberts blamed the Assembly administration for the shortage of funds, saying they were making doctors choose between treating one patient and treating another.

But now the Cardiff and Vale Health Trust has found the money needed from another source, and they say patients who need it will be given the life-enhancing drugs.

A spokeswoman said: "We urgently reviewed the funding situation for multiple sclerosis drugs and can confirm that the NHS will fund mitoxantrone for patients when it is the most appropriate treatment. "Four drugs are funded by Health Commission Wales for MS and these do not include mitoxantrone.

"However, in some cases mitoxantrone is the best treatment for this complex disease and we will prescribe it when necessary."

At the time, the Assembly administration said the reason for not prescribing the drug was not financial, but due to the fact that the drug had not been licensed.

But although money has been found, Mr Williams thinks the inherent problem has not been solved.

He said: "They've found the money for me and another patient who also went to her local paper, but it hasn't changed the fact that there will be more people needing expensive drugs who won't be able to have them.

There's still two years to go with the money in the MS budget.

"It hasn't solved the basic problem - and it has only happened with us because of the media pressure.

"I am pleased for myself, but yesterday I was angry because of the way it's been done. I think it's taken a little while to sink in."