Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of access to new innovative therapies for cancers.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE aims wherever possible to issue guidance on new medicines close to the time of licensing to ensure that patients are able to benefit from rapid access to clinically and cost effective new medicines. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended in a NICE technology appraisal, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.

NICE is able to recommend the most promising new cancer drugs for use through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) where there is too much uncertainty for NICE to be able to recommend routine funding. NHS England funds NICE-recommended cancer medicines from the CDF from the point of positive draft NICE guidance, bringing forward patient access by approximately five months than would otherwise be the case.

In England in 2024/25, 93% of NICE recommendations for cancer treatments were positive. Positive includes recommended, optimised, recommended in the CDF, and optimised in the CDF. Where guidance is optimised, the treatment has been recommended for a subset of patients rather than the full cohort for which it is licensed.