Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to ensure NHS melanoma patients are able to access nivolumab before its appraisal by NICE.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently appraising nivolumab for Melanoma (advanced, unresectable, metastatic) - [ID845], and the anticipated publication date for its final guidance is May 2016. Further information is available on NICE’s website at:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-tag515

In the absence of NICE guidance, funding decisions for individual treatments should be made by the relevant National Health Service commissioner, based on an assessment of the available evidence. Commissioners are also required to have processes in place for the consideration of exceptional funding requests.

NHS England is responsible for commissioning chemotherapy in England and has advised that it will not usually develop a commissioning policy on treatments which are undergoing NICE appraisal. Nivolumab is undergoing assessment and is not yet routinely funded for patients.