West Midlands Cancer Drug Fund
A new cancer drugs fund was announced by the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health in July 2010.
The West Midlands has been given £5.4m by the Government to set up a regional cancer drug fund to help patients get access to new cancer drugs. This money is only available up to the end of March 2011 and as with all finite NHS resources, we need to use it wisely.
This fund will help those cancer patients who need access to drugs now before the national Cancer Drugs Fund for England replaces this in April next year.
If you have any more questions you should speak to your cancer specialist.
Who can apply to use the fund?
The fund is to help patients who are having difficulty accessing some cancer drugs now. Funding requests can only be made by cancer specialists, on behalf of patients, to primary care trusts (PCTs). This means that a doctor will make an application on your behalf. The main reason for this is that other services are needed to help administer drugs and the hospitals need to be able to provide them.
The fund is to pay for additional treatments which the NHS does not currently pay for. All other avenues for accessing cancer drug funding at a local level need to have been tried before applying for the regional fund. In particular your doctor should have already made an application to your local primary care trust through the normal processes.
How can I access the fund?
The £5.4m additional funding will be available from October 2010. Patients will access the cancer funding through their cancer doctors, and individual patients should continue to discuss treatment options with their cancer specialist to decide what the best treatment is for them.
Who makes decisions about how the fund is used?
NHS West Midlands (the Strategic Health Authority) has set up a process to make sure that the extra funding is used properly. Doctors will be put in charge of deciding how the funding is spent for their patients locally based on the advice of cancer specialists.A clinical panel of cancer specialists will decide how this extra funding is best used for their patients on the behalf of the 17 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in the West Midlands.
Which drugs will it fund?
The panel will decide which new cancer drugs are made available through the fund and which are not. As decisions are made, the information will be posted on the NHS West Midlands website (www.westmidlands.nhs.uk) and shared with primary care trusts and cancer doctors in local hospitals.
How will decisions be made?
PCTs will ask the panel of cancer specialists to consider applications to use the fund and make decisions on funding. The clinically-led panel will consider drugs to be used for groups of patients and give highest priority to those drugs for which there is good clinical evidence that they work for the largest number of people. It will weigh up the potential benefits that new cancer drugs might offer and also consider what is known about how they affect the length and quality of life as well as likely side effects.
Who is on the panel?
The panel will be clinically led and include doctors who specialise in the treatment of cancer. They make the decisions about how the fund will be used. They will be supported by expert advisors such as pharmacists who specialise in cancer medicines and public health doctors. The panel will also have a lay member.
How long will it take for the panel to make a decision?
The aim is that decisions will be reached by the Cancer Drug Fund panel normally within three working days of a complete application being received.
What form of appeal process is there? If the panel denies someone funding for treatment, can the patient appeal?
A separate panel to consider appeals where an application has been unsuccessful has been set up. However, the panel will not challenge the decisions of the clinical panel. Its purpose is to ensure that the same process has been followed for all applications for funding.
What happens after the end of March 2011?
In the long term, the Government plans to change the way that the NHS pays for drugs and treatments. We are awaiting further guidance on this.
Further information can be found by clicking here
NHS West Midlands,
St Chad’s Court,
213 Hagley Road, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B16 9RG.
Tel: 0121 695 2222.
Fax 0121 695 233
Website: www.westmidlands.nhs.uk
- Department of Health
The Government body that is responsible for delivering the highest quality of health and social care within England.