Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the £20 million budget cap on the number of available cancer treatments.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has advised that, along with NHS England, it is consulting on a proposal to apply a budget impact threshold test of £20 million per year to new NICE-appraised drugs and medical technologies (devices and diagnostics).

Subject to the outcome of consultation, this test would not be applied retrospectively and therefore would not have an impact on any cancer treatments already positively appraised by NICE.