Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will set targets and goals for speeding up the use of off-patent drugs outside their licensed indications, where evidence supports that use.
We have no plans to set such targets or goals.
Off-patent drugs are those whose patent period has expired and they are widely used in the National Health Service now. Drugs can also be prescribed ‘off-label’ outside of their licensed indication(s) to individual patients where doctors consider it is clinically appropriate to do so. Prescribing decisions are rightly a matter for clinicians in discussion with their patients.
We are in the process of setting up a round-table discussion with key stakeholders, including NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to explore opportunities for supporting appropriate use of off-label drugs outside their licensed indications where the evidence supports this.