Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what type of drugs were financed by the Cancer Drugs Fund in each year since 2011.

The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) has helped over 84,000 people in England to access life-extending cancer drugs that would not otherwise have been available to them.

Prior to April 2013, the Fund was administered through clinical panels based in each of the 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs). Cumulative information on the number of different treatments financed by SHAs through the CDF for this period is as follows:

2011-12: approximately 89 treatments¹

2012-13: approximately 114 treatments¹

¹Information on the type of cancer being treated was not collected

Source: Information provided to the Department by SHAs as part of financial monitoring arrangements

Since April 2013, NHS England has had responsibility for the Fund and it publishes information on CDF activity routinely on its website at:

www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/pe/cdf/

The National Audit Office report, Investigation into the Cancer Drugs Fund, details the number of treatments available through the national CDF list from April 2013 as follows:

April 2013: 24 treatments covering 53 indications

April 2014: 40 treatments covering 78 indications

April 2015: 39 treatments covering 67 indications

Source: National Audit Office report Investigation into the Cancer Drugs Fund, published 17 September 2015

Decisions on which treatments are included on the national CDF list are made by the expert CDF clinical panel because it is right these decisions are clinically led. NHS England periodically reviews the national CDF list, adding new drugs or drugs indications to the list and/or removing drug indications from the list, for example when the indications have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for routine commissioning. Currently, 33 treatments covering 47 indications are listed.