Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of NHS England’s and NICE’s capabilities in relation to the commercial negotiations between them and pharmaceutical manufacturers in respect of the conditional approval route under the new Cancer Drugs Fund.

NHS England’s Board agreed, on 25 February 2016, a way forward which will see the proposed new arrangements for the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) going live on 1 July 2016

We expect NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to work together to ensure that both organisations have the necessary capability and capacity to implement these proposals, including the introduction of a conditional approval route.

The Accelerated Access Review (AAR) is actively engaging with NHS England to ensure alignment between the work of the review on speeding up access for NHS patients to innovative and cost effective new medicines and the CDF. The AAR is looking at the capability of NICE, NHS England and the Department to support innovative pathways for the assessment, adoption and reimbursement of treatments.