Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the total value of projected savings to be made by removing drugs and indications from the Cancer Drugs Fund in England over (1) Q1 of 2015–16, and (2) the whole of 2015–16.

NHS England has advised that the projected value of savings from the Cancer Drugs Fund, as a result of removing drugs from the national list, is not yet available.

Decisions to de-list drugs were made taking account of the need to ensure the limited resources of the Fund are used most effectively. Advances in medical science mean that new and exciting cancer medicines are emerging all the time and we want people to have access to these too.

The Government established the Cancer Drugs Fund to ensure that cancer patients in England have better access to life-extending and improving drugs not routinely funded by the National Health Service.

Between October 2010 and March 2015, the Fund has helped over 72,000 cancer patients.