Charities fearful over plans for cancer drugs

Experts warn thousands could lose out on treatments if powers are returned to health body

Leading cancer experts have pleaded with the Prime Minister to prevent NHS plans which they say could deny life-extending drugs to thousands of dying patients. Fifteen major charities have written to David Cameron, expressing “deep concern” and imploring him to order a review of changes to drugs rationing, which they say will set the country back almost two decades by handing powers back to a public health body.

LEADING cancer experts have pleaded with the Prime Minister to prevent NHS plans which they say could deny life-extending drugs to thousands of dying patients.

Fifteen major charities have written to David Cameron expressing “deep concern” and imploring him to order a review of changes to drugs rationing, which they say will set the country back almost two decades.

Under the plans, due to begin in July, only drugs authorised by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) will receive NHS funding.

Until now, a separate Cancer Drugs Fund – launched following a Tory 2010 manifesto pledge – has ensured treatment for thousands of patients whose treatments were rejected by Nice.

Charities say the new system will mean a return to wholesale rationing, with patients “cruelly denied” treat- ment that is routinely funded in much of the Western world.

Baroness Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said returning power to Nice would mean thousands of patients losing out.

“Not a single breast cancer drug has been considered cost-effective by Nice in the last seven years,” she said.

“I’m really worried that within months we will see women losing access to treatments which are currently being funded. These are wives, mothers, facing incurable cancers, who may no longer be able to get treatments which they could get across the water, and even across the border,” she said. Estimates suggest that more than 20,000 patients a year could lose access to treatment under the changes.

A number of breast cancer treatments which Nice has refused to support are funded in Scotland and Wales, as well as in many foreign countries.

Health officials say the new system – drawn up after the English health service overspent the drugs fund by £160 million – will mean better testing of treatments to see which work best.

But the charities say thousands of patients are likely to be denied hope of life-extending treatment because Nice is likely to just reject drugs it previously refused.

The letter to the Prime Minister, from charities including Breast Cancer Now, Bowel Cancer UK, Leukaemia Care and Prostate Cancer UK, says the NHS plan will consign patients back to systems from the “last century”.

It states: “We know of your personal commitment to the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), which has benefited 84,000 families since 2010. But, having seen plans for its long-awaited successor, we are deeply concerned by the lack of reform proposed to the wider Nice process of appraising cancer medicines. Unfortunately the new system does not update the methodology used by Nice, introduced back in 1999, and many clinically effective treatments will now struggle to gain approval.”

Sir Andrew Dillon, Nice chief executive, said: “I understand and support the ambition the charities have for access to effective cancer medicines.

“We have made sure that our methods for making recommendations for new drugs are consistent with the expectations of both NHS England and the Department of Health and we have we have made the changes that they have asked for.”