Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme in ensuring the availability of the most effective treatments for cancer patients.

The 2014 Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) helps patients to have access to effective medicines that their doctors think are right for them, while keeping the branded health service medicines bill within affordable limits. Drugs provided under the Cancer Drugs Fund are included with the PPRS Payment Mechanism.

The PPRS helps the National Health Service to improve patient access to innovative medicines commensurate with the outcomes they offer patients. Sales of new products are exempt from payments though still included in the overall limit on growth and the payments made by industry as a whole. This recognises and rewards innovation. There are also a number of agreed measures in the Scheme to improve access to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended medicines in England, including the effective use of system levers by NHS England.