Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of cancer patients who could not afford to continue using their anticancer agent beyond its NHS availability.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.

These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.

NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion

The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.