A charity has called for NHS England to allow all hepatitis C patients to access new treatments. It comes after the arm’s length body announced a much delayed commissioning policy for cirrhosis.

Last week NHS England unveiled £190m of extra funding for patients with cirrhosis to access a range of new treatments, including the drug sofosbuvir.

The move is expected to mean 3,500 more patients will be able to access treatment in 2015-16. It was described by NHS England as the health service’s “single largest investment in new treatments this year”.

The announcement was welcomed by Charles Gore, chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust, who said it was an “important step forwards [in] widening access to… highly effective new therapies”.

However, Mr Gore criticised the delays to bringing in the cirrhosis commissioning policy, which was supposed to have been ready by April, and expressed concern that NHS England was “holding up” access to other hepatitis C treatments.

NHS England was granted permission by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to delay giving hepatitis C patients access to new treatments until the end of next month, in what charities claimed was an attempt by the national commissioning board to control costs.

NHS England said it had requested the delay due to concerns over the time needed to provide the necessary infrastructure to provide the new medicines.

The cirrhosis policy was “fast tracked” for implementation by April because patients with the condition were deemed to be at “risk of serious harm” it treatment was delayed, NHS England said.

But the Hepatitis C Trust said cirrhosis “is only part of the picture”, and is calling on NHS England to allow all hepatitis C patients access to a range of new treatments, which it claims are also being delayed on cost grounds.

This includes Harvoni, a combination of therapies which is marketed by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences.  

In a letter sent to the health secretary earlier this month, the Hepatitis C Trust and other charities accused NHS England of setting a “dangerous new precedent” by introducing “affordability” into the selection of new drugs rather than “cost effectiveness”.

Mr Gore said: “NHS England is currently holding up NICE appraisals for a range of new hepatitis C treatments on affordability grounds.

“This denies preventative treatment to a large cohort of patients with hepatitis C, many of whom are suffering from debilitating systems that affect their ability to work, and who are living with the stigma associated with hepatitis C and the risk of transmission this carries.”

Richard Jeavons, NHS England’s director of specialised commissioning, said the cirrhosis policy was a “huge investment” at a time when NHS funding was “inevitably constrained”.

He added that NHS England would run a “competitive tendering process” to reduce the price of “these very expensive new drugs”.

Topics