Asked by: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Royal College of Anaesthetists' report entitled, Core Standards for Pain Management Services in the UK, published in October 2015, whether his Department has given any consideration to the contents of that report.
Answered by Jane Ellison
NHS England has welcomed the publication of the Core Standards for Pain Management report in the United Kingdom, published by the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in October 2015. Andrew Baranowski, the Chair of NHS England’s Clinical Reference Group for Specialised Pain contributed to this work, which sets out core standards and key recommendations in the management of pain; the commissioning of pain management services and the development of the workforce.
The report is available at:
http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/system/files/FPM-CSPMS-UK2015.pdf
Asked by: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ask NHS England to publish a case study of the revised Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) patient journey and give examples for how people are initiated onto CDF-approved treatments now and how people will be treated under the proposed new CDF scheme.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence are currently consulting jointly on draft proposals on the future direction of the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF). The consultation document states that all patients receiving treatment funded through the CDF on 31 March 2016 will continue to receive treatment until the point that they and their consultant agree that it is appropriate to stop.
NHS England has advised that the aim of the future CDF is to help patients receive new treatments with genuine promise, while real world evidence is collected for up to two years on how well they work in practice. This will then help determine whether the treatment should be accepted for routine use in the National Health Service in the future. It is not possible to make comparisons between the current and future CDF until such time as the consultation has concluded and the responses reviewed.
The consultation was published on 19 November 2015 and is open until 11 February 2016. Further information is available at:
www.engage.england.nhs.uk/consultation/cdf-consultation
Asked by: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions the his Department, NHS England and NICE have had on the effect of proposed Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) changes on patients prescribed current CDF treatments who will not receive interim funding under that proposed new scheme.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence are currently consulting jointly on draft proposals on the future direction of the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF). The consultation document states that all patients receiving treatment funded through the CDF on 31 March 2016 will continue to receive treatment until the point that they and their consultant agree that it is appropriate to stop.
NHS England has advised that the aim of the future CDF is to help patients receive new treatments with genuine promise, while real world evidence is collected for up to two years on how well they work in practice. This will then help determine whether the treatment should be accepted for routine use in the National Health Service in the future. It is not possible to make comparisons between the current and future CDF until such time as the consultation has concluded and the responses reviewed.
The consultation was published on 19 November 2015 and is open until 11 February 2016. Further information is available at:
www.engage.england.nhs.uk/consultation/cdf-consultation
Asked by: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve one-year cancer survival rates over the next five years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
We want to lead the world in fighting cancer. Survival rates have never been higher, but we want to go further. In England, the independent Cancer Taskforce’s five-year strategy for cancer, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes, published in July 2015, recommends improvements across the cancer pathway with the aim of improving survival rates.
Updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence referral guidelines for suspected cancer could save about 5,000 lives with general practitioners urged to think of cancer sooner and lower the referral threshold for tests. Whilst health is, of course, a devolved matter, we know that these guidelines are often used by the devolved administrations.