Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to allocate the £500 million Innovative Drugs Fund to (a) rare disease treatments and (b) cancer treatments.

We made a commitment to extend the successful Cancer Drugs Fund into an Innovative Medicines Fund (IMF) so that doctors can use the most advanced, life-saving treatments for conditions such as cancer or autoimmune disease, or for children with other rare diseases.

Proposals for the IMF are in development and we expect NHS England and NHS Improvement and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to lead a consultation on the fund in due course.