Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations made by the Decision Support Unit in its 2014 Report, Assessing technologies that are not cost-effective at zero price, what steps he is taking to support access to innovative medicines in response to those recommendations.

We reformed the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) in 2016 to improve patient access to promising and innovative new cancer treatments.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) appraises all new cancer drugs and is now able to recommend cancer drugs for use through the CDF where there is too much uncertainty to be able to recommend them for routine commissioning. Thousands of National Health Service patients in England have benefitted from rapid access to new cancer drugs as a result of the CDF and NICE recommended 92% of the cancer drugs it appraised in 2020.

NICE recognises its procedures need to keep pace with developments in medical innovation and is currently undertaking a review of its methods and processes. The methods review explores issues relevant to the appraisal of new cancer drugs, such as addressing uncertainty and taking account of innovation. However, it is too soon to comment on the potential outcomes and any changes to NICE’s methods that may be implemented.