Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that all medicines added to or removed from the Cancer Drugs Fund list are assessed in a fair and transparent manner.

NHS England published its revised standard operating procedures for the Cancer Drugs Fund on 12 November. These set out the basis on which the Cancer Drugs Fund panel will make decisions on which drugs are included within the national Cancer Drugs Fund list and are available at:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/sop-cdf-1114.pdf

Patient representatives sit on the Cancer Drugs Fund panel to ensure that the panel’s decisions take the patient’s perspective into account.