Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out how the National Cancer Plan for England will reduce barriers to innovative and life extending treatments for people with secondary breast cancer when those treatments are not approved by National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

The National Cancer Plan commits to increasing access to the best innovative cancer treatments for all patients, including those with secondary breast cancer. The Cancer Drugs Fund has helped to ensure that, according to industry data, patients in England receive new cancer treatments 50% faster than the European Union average, and it will continue to provide earlier access to promising new treatments. By April 2026, a joint process between National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will boost the speed of decisions on licensing and appraisal of medicines, so that recommendations for the National Health Service to fund new drugs can be made faster.

NICE has a strong track record in recommending treatments for breast cancer and will continue to evaluate all new medicines for breast cancer. There are no plans to routinely fund medicines where NICE has been unable to recommend them as clinically and cost effective.

Since January 2022, NICE has recommended all but one of the treatments for breast cancer that it has assessed through the Cancer Drugs Fund, including treatments for secondary breast cancer such as Truqap and Korserdu, which are now available to eligible NHS patients.

To ensure that people diagnosed with secondary breast cancer have timely access to new and innovative treatments, NHS England commissioned a National Audit of Metastatic Breast Cancer, which provides timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary. The purpose of the audit is to identify information to increase the consistency of access to treatments and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The NHS is now acting on those findings.