Health: Cancer Drugs Fund

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

We plan to ensure that value-based pricing will take care of the gap that currently exists in the availability of cancer drugs, which the cancer drugs fund is trying to address. In theory, until then any drug that a clinician wishes to prescribe for a cancer patient is available under the cancer drugs fund. There is no restriction that we have set; it is a clinical judgment.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, many patients from north Wales go to Christie’s Hospital in Manchester or Clatterbridge on Merseyside. How will this fund be available to them? How does Wales come out of the complexity of this situation?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is of course for the devolved Administrations to make their own decisions about their individual needs and budgets. It will depend on whether commissioners in Wales are willing to accept the cost of treating a patient with a drug that is not normally available in Wales. I cannot generalise but it is up to Welsh commissioners to take that decision.