The so-called Saatchi Bill passed the House of Lords last week – a ray of hope for cancer patients and pioneers of innovative medicine. After three years of revisions, amendments and debates, it’s ready to face the House of Commons. We can only hope that our MPs know that they hold in their hands a chance for a better life for thousands of British cancer sufferers.

Cancer treatment is a long, painful and sometimes futile road. On top of the agony of their disease, a patient currently faces gruelling months of harsh chemical treatments that weaken their immune system, isolate them from loved ones and ravage their bodies. For elderly patients, it’s often too much. Doctors and carers chirp that a patient’s best hope for recovery is a “positive attitude” – but that’s tough to maintain when your body and your world are falling apart around you.

The cancer treatments currently available are almost all in the same vein, but in laboratories and hospitals all over the world, a rebellion has long been brewing. The Medical Innovation Bill gives better legal protection to doctors who want to try new techniques on patients in desperate need. In a medical world where a patient’s health is often weighed against the risk of failure and legal action, it gives doctors the freedom to “treat outside the box.”

While this is great news for health advocates promoting alternative remedies as well as to patients unable to bear the pain and indignity of current treatments, the reality is that the Saatchi Bill might just be too little, too late. When unfamiliar treatments are combined with timid doctors, the outcome is that only the most hopeless cases are likely to reap any benefits from this bill. Experimental, radical treatments tend to be used as a last resort, on patients who have already been through gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy with no results.

The bill could give these patients another precious shot at life – however, their damaged state means the likelihood of any kind of successful treatment is extremely low. After disease and medicine alike take a toll on their bodies, they are often too weak to fight on. Those unsuccessful results could mean negative publicity for new and brilliant innovations, and patients in need will have fewer opportunities to take control of their cancer treatment.

We also still have the Cancer Act 1939 to contend with – a rather archaic piece of legislation which hasn’t been entirely repealed by the Saatchi Bill. The Act prohibits advertisements for cancer treatments, including offering advice and regardless of format. How can patients request a new remedy, or doctor’s find the answer to their prayers, when the entire industry is gagged?

Hurdles aside, this is still a great step forward for innovative treatments in the UK. It’s inspiring to see such progress being made despite often draconian EU laws governing alternative remedies. We can only hope that the benefits of this law go not just to ease the passing of critical patients, but to give a second chance to those who still have a hope of recovery.