Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to make new cancer drugs more accessible.

Patients have the right to cancer drugs and treatments that have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence technology appraisal guidance for use in the National Health Service, where their doctor believes they are clinically appropriate.

We announced in August that the Cancer Drugs Fund would be increased to £280 million in both 2014-15 and 2015-16. Since October 2010, over 55,000 cancer patients in England have benefited from the Fund and this extra funding is helping to ensure that patients continue to receive the effective cancer drugs which are right for them.

We have launched an Early Access to Medicines Scheme to give patients with life threatening or seriously debilitating conditions access to medicines that do not yet have a marketing authorisation when there is a clear unmet medical need. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency awarded the first promising innovative medicine designation for a cell therapy product for the treatment of cancer on 8 September 2014.

In addition, the National Health Service and its partners have begun a ground-breaking new project which will sequence 100,000 whole human genomes of patients with cancer or a rare disease by the end of 2017. This will lead to faster diagnosis and better targeting of treatments.