Cancer charity Macmillan Cancer Support and the NHS Confederation are in discussions about joint work to improve public confidence in primary care trust exception committee decisions.
Macmillan Cancer Support says getting hold of cancer drugs is a postcode lottery, with patients being told by their primary care trust they are not "exceptional enough" for some drugs.
It told the Today programme that patients find it difficult to find out who is the best person to talk to in PCTs or to get information on how to prove their case is exceptional.
Macmillan said the way the committees are run and how information on decisions is described varies widely across the country.
"We are calling for clarity about how people are referred and what criteria are taken into account," Macmillan senior cancer information nurse Stuart Danskin told Today.
An NHS Confederation spokesman said that although it is early days the two organisations share a "common purpose" in wanting to improve public confidence in exception committees.
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