Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government has taken to improve brain cancer patients' access to cancer drugs.

The Government is committed to ensuring that patients have access to effective treatments, including those for brain cancers, on terms that represent value to the National Health Service and the taxpayer.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for providing advice to the NHS on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of health technologies. NICE has recommended the following drugs for brain cancers as treatment options, subject to certain clinical criteria, in its technology appraisal guidance published in June 2007:

- temozolomide (Temodal) for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM); and

- carmustine (Gliadel) implants, for the treatment of newly diagnosed high-grade glioma.

NHS commissioners are legally required to fund treatments recommended by NICE technology appraisal guidance.

Where a drug to treat brain cancer is not routinely available on the NHS, patients may be able to access it through the Cancer Drugs Fund. Bevacizumab (Avastin) is available for the third line treatment of low grade paediatric gliomas through the Fund.

We are also commissioning an external review of the pathways for the development, assessment, and adoption of innovative medicines and medical technology. This review will consider how to speed up access for NHS patients to cost-effective new diagnostics, medicines and devices.