A Cancer Drugs Fund for Scotland?

Cancer is a condition that no human being should have to suffer. However, sadly, too many people die from it too often and many more suffer during day to day life because of it.

On the 6th December, First Minister's Questions was dominated with questions from both leaders of the Scottish Labour and Scottish Conservative parties over drug treatment for cancer patients in Scotland.

When David Cameron became British Prime Minister in 2010, one of the policies contained within the Conservative party manifesto was to introduce a cancer drugs fund in England worth £200m. The NHS has been one of the most innovative institutions of our time. However, it is a victim of its own success because the resources it has is finite and limited.

And because the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence, otherwise known as NICE, are limited in how far their arms are stretched when it comes to approving funding for medicines in the NHS in England, this is where the Prime Minister came in, pledging the extra money to ensure that patients who need the treatment can receive it.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium, the equivalent of NICE in Scotland, have probably realised those similar limitations. I think an inevitable decision is ought to be made by the Scottish Government to introduce a similar kind of fund in Scotland because those particular medicines are very expensive and there is a credible case for doing so. But in the end it all comes to funding and sadly the NHS budget can only stretch so far.

However one recent example of a drug to treat prostate cancer, abiraterone, has been approved by the Scottish Medicines Consortium earlier this year. Although it was rejected on the grounds that it was too expensive to prescribe on the NHS (£3,000 a month per patient), the SMC reversed its initial decision.

The reality is, in the current political climate, cuts to public spending have become inevitable and priorities for spending have been clearly made by the Scottish Government. And the funding from Westminster will not get any bigger anytime soon. Although the idea of setting up a cancer drugs fund is an excellent idea, how is it going to be funded? Will other public spending commitments have to go?

I will touch on public spending and priorities in another post later on this week. Watch this space.