Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department plans to provide for the roll-out of (a) fampridine and (b) other new drugs in each year of this Parliament.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources.

The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended in a NICE appraisal, usually within three months of final guidance. Information about the amount of funding the NHS plans to provide for the roll-out of new drugs is not available. Commissioners within NHS England receive funding each year to commission services for their population, which includes funding for new and established medicines. Fampridine, however, has not been recommended by NICE, so is not available for routine NHS use within England.