Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with clinicians on barriers to prescribing bisphosphonates to prevent secondary breast cancer.

No such discussions have taken place.

Prescribing decisions are for clinicians taking into account their patients’ individual clinical circumstances.

Bisphosphonates are not licensed for the treatment or prevention of secondary breast cancer. However clinicians can prescribe bisphosphonates ‘off-license’, subject to any local funding policies, if they consider them to be clinically appropriate for an individual. Current prescribing arrangements allow off-license drugs that are found to have new uses to be prescribed to patients.

There is no legal or regulatory barrier to prescribing drugs off license. Prescribing in this way is part of normal every day clinical practice and offers benefits to a great number of patients.