Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effects of proposed changes to the way in which drugs are assessed for inclusion in the Cancer Drugs Fund on cancer drug patients.

NHS England has advised that it envisages, under the new arrangements for the Cancer Drugs Fund, that a greater number of cancer drugs will be funded from baseline commissioning. This will be as a consequence of more appropriate pricing arrangements proposed by pharmaceutical manufacturers and better evidence being available through the Fund as to longer term patient outcomes.