Cancer patients lose out in NHS overspend
pharmafile | January 6, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Macmillan, NHS England
Patients in the NHS may not be able to receive new treatments for cancer as it emerges that health chiefs in England have overspent on their budgets.
The NHS England’s specialist services budget – worth £11.8 billion – is on course to be more than £300 million in the red this year.
This has prompted a number of charities to warn of a ‘crisis’ if spending cannot be controlled on a part of the NHS which accounts for 10% of the total healthcare budget.
Charity leaders are also concerned that the NHS will be unable to bail out the government’s Cancer Drugs Fund, which is now struggling to cope with demand.
This Fund, which pays an extra £200 million each year toward new cancer treatments under appraisal or rejected by NICE, was extended by prime minister David Cameron late last year and will now run until 2016.
But given this latest shortfall – and that so many patients have applied for the Fund – NHS England says that it will not consider new drugs until next year. Estimates by some healthcare analysts suggest that it will need an extra £120 million to treat all applicants.
Andrew Wilson, chief executive of the Rarer Cancers Forum, told The Times: “These figures show the real reason for NHS England’s frantic efforts to reduce spending on cancer treatments, which have made a mockery of the prime minister’s promise of a Cancer Drugs Fund.”
Doctors have also been forced to cancel a £50 million fund to fast-track the use of new therapies because NHS England has spent too much of its budget for specialist care.
Bosses are now looking for further savings, which could include tougher restrictions on eligibility for treatment or delays to the introduction of drugs – treatments for existing patients will however continue.
In the first six months of this financial year, NHS chief executives spent £196 million more than planned on the specialised commissioning budget that funds services ranging from heart surgery and major trauma to cancer treatment, rare diseases and complex care for mental health and other conditions.
They are on course for a £336 million deficit by April, ministers admitted in a parliamentary answer to Paul Burstow, a former care minister. NHS England said that overspend was caused by improving the care in some parts of the country for people with rare conditions to end so-called postcode lotteries.
Mike Hobday, director of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Given that the total amount of money is fixed, if they’re levelling up in some areas, there must be some areas they’re levelling down in. Macmillan’s concern is that there is a wider threat to the sustainability of cancer services more generally.
“If we’re overspending now when there are two million people living with cancer, what will it be like in 2030 when there are four million? If we can’t control the money now, the problem is going to get worse and worse.
“The answer isn’t the taxpayer forever finding more money, the answer is the NHS finding ways to improve without increasing cost. The medium-term threat is to everybody with every condition. If they do nothing there is going to be a major crisis in five to ten years.”
Ben Adams
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