Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that patients have (a) early and (b) timely access to cancer drugs.

New arrangements for the assessment and adoption of new cancer drugs were introduced in 2016 to help improve patient access to new cancer drugs, including through the Government established Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) now appraises all new cancer drugs and aims to publish draft recommendations before a drug receives a licence. The CDF is now linked to the NICE appraisal programme and where there is too much uncertainty to be able to support routine funding, NICE is able to recommend the most promising new cancer drugs for use through the CDF, with funding available from the point of NICE’s draft recommendation or licensing.

Previously NICE recommended cancer drugs were only routinely funded following publication of its final guidance.