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Message from Minister - Charles Hendry

Hope this may be helpful. Response received by a friend who wrote to his MP - forwarded to me.

Dear Richard

Thank you for your email and kind wishes.

There is indeed an EDM 1831 but as a Minister, I regret that I am not
able to sign Early Day Motions as they are essentially a mechanism
whereby backbench MPs can draw their concerns and views to the
Government¹s attention.

The Government will introduce a new system of value-based pricing which
will make effective treatments affordable to patients on the NHS. These
plans will ensure licenced and effective drugs are available to NHS
clinicians and patients. The Government will focus NICE's role on what
matters most - advising clinicians on effective treatments and quality
standards - rather than making decisions on whether patients should
access drugs that their doctors want to prescribe.

As a result of these changes, NICE will not be able to issue formal
restrictions on the use of treatments on the NHS. Instead, these
decisions will be taken locally. Taken together, I believe these
policies will help restore confidence in our drugs licencing system, and
help patients gain access to the medication they need.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Best wishes

Charles

**

*Charles Hendry*

*Member of Parliament for Wealden*

'As a result of these changes, NICE will not be able to issue formal
restrictions on the use of treatments on the NHS. Instead, these
decisions will be taken locally.'

This means that the PCT (until they are abolished in order to change the system of commissioning to GP consortia as is Andrew Lansley's plan) will make the decision to fund - or not. PCT's will send doctors to the Cancer Drugs Fund- which is a stop gap for all new innovative drugs.
NICE does not consider dasatinib or nilotinib to be 'innovative' although they do consider imatinib to be so.!
The official comment we sent to NICE has addressed this apparent inconsistency- NICE considers innovation to be 'pharmacological progress' ........ in our opinion that is just what both 2nd generation drugs represent- progress- and therefore they are innovative.

Sandy