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News
01 April 2011
Cancer Patients to Benefit from New Cancer Drugs Fund
A £200 million a year Cancer Drugs Fund that will give patients greater access to cancer drugs that their doctors recommend for them was launched today by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.
This follows the successful £50m interim fund – including £4.8 million for the South West - that has given access to life-extending drugs to 158 cancer patients across the region since October last year.
The Cancer Drugs Fund will now see up to £19.2 million made available to the South West for the coming year, as part of a three year investment by the Coalition Government which is committed to making the NHS more responsive to patients and to increasing access to innovative new drugs that extend life or improve quality of life.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “We have committed £600m over three years to help cancer sufferers have access to drugs that can give them precious extra time with their loved ones
.
“The £50 million interim fund we set up in October has been a great success, helping over 2,000 cancer patients across England. We believe that investing a further £200 million a year will continue to improve the lives of cancer sufferers and their families.
“This fund is a good example of why we are modernising the NHS so we can improve services for patients and ensure everyone can have the treatments and drugs that they are prescribed by doctors.”
Dr Mike Durkin, Medical Director at the South West Strategic Health Authority, said:
“The work that we put into developing the Interim Cancer Drugs Fund over the last six months has been crucial in helping us give patients access to drugs that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Through the scheme, many patients have now received treatment that we know is likely to be clinically effective.
“The Interim Cancer Drugs Fund has been an excellent example of how we can give patients access to the newer, innovative treatments that have real potential.
“The crucial factor to treating cancer successfully is early diagnosis and prevention wherever possible. In the South West we are continuing to focus on improving access to cancer screening programmes and appropriate diagnostic tests as well as supporting people to make lifestyle changes such as stopping smoking that will reduce their risk of getting cancer.”
NHS organisations across the South West worked together to create a clear process for applications to the fund, which are made by hospital consultants on behalf of individual patients.
Applications are considered by an independent clinical panel made up of regional cancer experts such as oncologists, haematologists and palliative care specialists.
The panel is chaired by James Palmer, Medical Director for the South West Specialist Commissioning Group and consultant neurosurgeon at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust.
He said: “In the South West, we have seen increased access to drugs for patients with rarer cancers through the interim Cancer Drugs Fund and we are pleased that the new Fund will allow this to continue.
“The panel has worked to deliver swift decisions and the vast majority of applications have been approved. We are now looking forward to auditing the outcomes of these treatments once clinical data is sufficiently mature.”
The Cancer Drugs Fund is in addition to what Primary Care Trusts already spend, and clinicians can still apply locally to Primary Care Trusts for exceptional funding of drugs not normally available.
Patients or clinicians seeking more information on the Fund in the South West can log onto www.southwest.nhs.uk
All drugs recommended as clinically and cost effective by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) will continue to be funded by the NHS. NICE will continue to appraise most significant new drugs, and will have an important part to play in our longer-term plans to introduce value-based pricing for new medicines.
