Cancer Drugs

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone, and to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows).

I commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee and on the way in which he opened it. He has set the correct tone for how we seek the improvements we would like to see in access to cancer drugs for all our constituents. He was absolutely right to say that cancer touches every family. I lost my mother to ovarian cancer 21 years ago, and it is as painful to talk about today as it was then, when I was teenager. Only last week, my aunty passed away from cancer. It was a quick movement from the diagnosis to her passing, and I would like to place on the official record my thanks and tribute to all the staff at Willow Wood hospice in Ashton-under-Lyne, who looked after her so beautifully in her last days and hours. I also express my condolences to Evan, Shana, Sonya, Lal and Connor, who she has left behind.

The hon. Member for Strangford was absolutely right to say that we have made advances, but we still lag behind many comparable countries in cancer treatment. Access really does matter. I represent a cross-borough constituency, so I have to deal with two of everything, from police divisions right through to NHS trusts. Early on in my time as the Member of Parliament for Denton and Reddish, a constituent who had been diagnosed with breast cancer came to my advice surgery. She explained that her specialist had recommended Herceptin for its treatment, but that it was not available in her primary care trust area. If she had lived across the road, across the invisible administrative line—but still in the same constituency, with the same Member of Parliament—she would have had access to the drug. That was one of those moments when it was perfectly acceptable for the Member of Parliament to throw all the toys out of the pram. I did so, and thankfully I managed to get the primary care trust to change its mind.

Several years later the lady came to my surgery again, about something completely different, and it was one of those proud moments when one realises one has made a difference. She said, “Mr Gwynne, you don’t recognise me, do you?” and I replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t. I have met lots of people in my time as an MP. Should I recognise you?” She said, “I’m that lady you got Herceptin for, and I’m still here.” I do not know whether the Herceptin made a difference, but she believed that it did, and she would not have had access to it if I had not thrown all the toys out of the pram. That is why I start by commending the Government on the introduction of the Cancer Drugs Fund. The fund has been of significant benefit to patients, and that is to be welcomed—it would be churlish not to recognise the difference it has made. I am a little concerned, however, that the Government—as we have already heard—are now presiding over a series of reductions, which threaten the progress made.

We have already seen 18 treatments cut, and now NHS England has announced that a further 25 are due to be removed from next month. The Rarer Cancers Foundation has estimated that if all the cuts go ahead, more than 5,500 patients a year could be denied access in the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and others during the course of the debate have made that point powerfully.

Is the Minister content to stand by as the cuts are made? What will he do to help the patients who will miss out on these treatments if they are removed? At Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, the Prime Minister lauded NHS England’s negotiation process as a means of securing better value for the taxpayer, yet I fear the truth is rather different. I hear reports from charities and drug companies that suggest that NHS England has refused even to discuss discounts on some of the treatments threatened with cuts. Far from wanting to strike a deal that works for the taxpayer and helps patients, NHS England seems intent on leaving deals on the table. It is sad that efforts to save money on a range of drugs have been spurned. The chief executive of NHS England once said that he wanted his organisation to:

“Think like a patient, act like a taxpayer.”

The current position, however, seems to be against the interests of taxpayers and patients. Will the Minister intervene in NHS England to ensure that it considers every single offer that is put to it and that it redoubles efforts to maintain access to these drugs while securing the savings we all want to see?

The Minister cannot wash his hands of the issue when the process is evidently failing patients and delivering poor value for public money. Other countries seem to be able to make the drugs available without spending more money on their health services, which implies that they are better at striking deals, or at least are more flexible in doing so. Why are we not following the same process? Why should our constituents be denied these drugs when patients in other countries have access to them?

In brief response to my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), I place on record that we on the Labour Front Bench support his private Member’s Bill on off-patent drugs, which has the support of the Association of Medical Research Charities and will help to improve access to off-patent drugs. We also need to look at ways of encouraging clinicians to use off-patent drugs.

I will touch briefly on points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made on radiotherapy and surgery and the benefits that extending access to those treatments can provide. Going into the general election, the Labour party’s position was that we would extend the Cancer Drugs Fund to become a cancer treatment fund that would include radiotherapy and surgery. What consideration have the Government given to ensuring that all the innovations will be available as part of the fund?

On the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme, I fear that there is more bad news to come for cancer patients. In August, the Department of Health snuck out some changes to the PPRS on a Friday afternoon, and I fear that the implications of that news could be bad indeed. The change agreed with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry effectively limits the level of PPRS rebates that drug companies have to make on expenditure through the Cancer Drugs Fund. That creates a financial black hole over the lifetime of the PPRS that the Rarer Cancers Foundation tells me could amount to £567 million. The Government need to find more than half a billion pounds to cover the gap between projected Cancer Drugs Fund spend and PPRS rebates. Will the Minister tell the House how this gap will be filled? Can he reassure patients that the budget for the CDF will not be cut and that patients will not miss out as a result of that secret deal between the Government and the drugs companies?

Finally, I want to cover the consultation on the future. The cuts announced to the Cancer Drugs Fund in September were an inevitable consequence of an abject failure to fix the system. The Government’s record on the reform of drugs pricing and assessment is a sorry tale of promises not kept. First we had value-based pricing, which was meant to be the solution, but went nowhere. Then we had value-based assessment, which was derided by all sides and shelved by NICE, the very organisation that proposed it. The hon. Member for Foyle made some powerful points and interesting suggestions not just on the combined purchasing power of the various NHS systems across the devolved Administrations, but on the wider purchasing power of all the Administrations of the islands on which we reside. I would like the Minister to consider that.

We have the promise of Cancer Drugs Fund reform, but the process is already riddled with confusion and delay. The NHS England working group on reform was shut down as quickly as it was set up. A consultation was promised for July and then September—now it is October and we still have no consultation. In drawing the debate to a conclusion, will the Minister provide an update on when the consultation will finally be published? If he cannot do so, will he intervene with NHS England to ensure that Members are updated so that they can reassure the many of thousands of cancer patients whose treatment depends on satisfactory reform?