‘Inequality’ for Welsh cancer patients
pharmafile | August 28, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | CDF, Cancer, England, NHS, NICE, Wales
Cancer sufferers in England are four times more likely to receive newer treatments on the NHS than patients in Wales, according to a charity.
The Rarer Cancers Foundation (RCF)’s analysis of individual patient funding requests (IFPRs) suggests that approval rates for new drugs were 7.05 per 100,000 in Wales, versus 29.10 per 100,000 in England.
The big difference, the charity says, is that those in England have access to the Cancer Drugs Fund, while the Welsh Assembly has consistently said that such a fund is unfair to some patients.
The purpose of the fund is to pay for cancer drugs that have not been recommended by NICE, or which are currently being appraised by the watchdog – although the fund itself is due to be mothballed next year.
Welsh authorities insist that more is spent on cancer patients in Wales than in England, and point out that drugs which have not been approved by NICE or the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group can still be prescribed in cases of ‘clinical exceptionality’.
Last year Welsh spend on cancer treatment was £4.50 more per head of population than in England, it says, with a focus on early diagnosis and evidence-based access to cancer drugs.
The RCF is not impressed, however. Chief executive Andrew Wilson said: “The Welsh government’s own figures reveal the extent of inequality in access to cancer drugs in Wales. Cancer patients are paying the price for a failure to fix this broken system.”
The charity said two oncology treatments, Roche’s Avastin (bevacizumab) and Merck KGaA’s Erbitux (cetuximab), were the most common subjects of IFPRs in Wales in 2012-13.
“The needs of cancer patients are no less pressing on one side of a border than they are on another, nor are treatments any less effective,” Wilson concluded. “Urgent action is needed to end this inequality. Politicians should set aside their political differences and act in the interests of patients.”
Set up by the Westminster government in 2010, the Cancer Drugs Fund is projected to cost around £190 million in 2013-14.
Adam Hill
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