Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what effect the new proposals for value-based assessments published by the National Institute for Healthand Care Excellence on 22 March 2014 have had on the availability of treatments to patients with (1) those forms of cancer which are more frequent in older people, and (2) rare types of cancer.

A consultation on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE) proposals for value assessment is ongoing and no decisions have yet been made about any potential changes to NICE's methods of technology appraisal.

The consultation will close on 20 June and we would encourage all those with an interest, including patients, clinicians, the National Health Service, industry, researchers and academic experts, to make their views known as part of this process.