Blood Diseases: Medical Treatments

(asked on 7th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he NHS England is taking to ensure that patients with bleeding disorders have adequate access to treatment options that meet individual patient need.


Answered by
Seema Kennedy Portrait
Seema Kennedy
This question was answered on 15th May 2019

Regular clinical reviews of patients with severe and moderate haemophilia and access to physiotherapy services are specified within the service specification for haemophilia which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/b05-haemophilia.pdf

In addition, the Haemophilia Quality Dashboard has a metric specifically in relation to the proportion of severe Haemophilia patients who have had an annual review. Where local commissioning teams are made aware that haemophilia patients do not have access to appropriate care then local action plans will be agreed to rectify this.

The service specification for haemophilia currently does not require that haemophilia patients receive tailored dosing of treatment. However, commissioners consider that this would represent good practice. NHS England has supported clinical teams to provide tailored dosing, within the parameters of the agreed commissioning criteria and guidelines, by making a wide range of products available for reimbursement.

To date, all licensed and currently marketed products for haemophilia are available for reimbursement. Some products have been limited to Haemophilia Comprehensive Care Centres due to specific requirements for supporting services and expertise (these are products for patients with inhibitors).

NHS England wants all patients with lifelong conditions to be engaged in the management of their condition. NHS England, in conjunction with the United Kingdom Haemophilia Centre Doctors’ Organisation (UKHCDO), believes that tools like Haemtrack are useful in achieving this aim. NHS England is aware of evidence that indicates, but does not confirm, that patients who use Haemtrack have better clinical outcomes than patients who do not. NHS England supports UKHCDO via the National Haemophilia Database to provide further data and evidence demonstrating the value and clinical benefits of Haemtrack.

The Commercial Medicines Unit has two national framework agreements in place that provide access to recombinant factor VIII (rFVIII) haemophilia products. The one licensed Extended Half Life-Factor VIII product available in the UK has been funded since September 2016 and a significant number of patients are now treated with this product. NHS England and other UK Health Commissioners work closely with clinicians and patient representatives to ensure that the frameworks continue to meet clinical need whilst delivering good value to the National Health Service.

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