PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(3 February 2025)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 January 2025 to Question 21831 on Cancer: Drugs, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the findings on page 21 of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ publication entitled EFPIA Patients W.A.I.T. Indicator 2023 Survey, published in June 2024, that 25% of new oncology medicines approved by the European Medicines Agency had full public availability to English patients in 2019-2022.

Asked by:
Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat)

The Government wants National Health Service patients to benefit from effective NHS treatments at a price that is fair to the NHS and the taxpayer. It is important that we have a system in place for making evidence-based decisions on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends most new licensed cancer medicines for use in the treatment of eligible NHS patients in England. Since 2019, 89% of NICE appraisals of cancer medicines have resulted in a positive recommendation for some or all of the eligible patient population.

Other countries operate very different health systems and direct comparisons in medicine availability are very difficult to make. The NICE’s methods establish what is considered value for money for the NHS in England and overall, the rate of the availability of cancer medicines in England is higher than the European average.

Answered by:
()