Rare cancer drugs budget underspent by nearly half

The Rarer Cancers Foundation’s audit of the use of the £200m cancer drugs fund by 93 primary care trusts estimated that  nearly £27.5m was spent on drugs not usually paid for by the NHS.

Despite the underspend, applications on behalf of 187 patients were denied. The report found there were 2,880 applications to the fund between October 2010 and March 2011.

The fund, announced last autumn by health secretary Andrew Lansley, is intended to stop regional disparities in access to medication. But the report found “significant variations” in how many applications for drugs strategic health authorities were approving. It found SHAs in the North were more likely to approve drugs than southern counterparts.

It said: “NHS South Central approved approximately 75 per cent of applications whereas NHS North East approved every application received.”

There were also variations in the number of applications in each region. The report said NHS North West had a list of drugs that would only be funded in exceptional circumstances.

It said: “This breaches the spirit of the cancer drugs fund policy, which is meant to put power and responsibility in the hands of clinicians.”

A quarter of PCTs take four weeks or more to determine exceptional case applications for drugs, during which time a patient’s disease may have progressed significantly, the report said.

Rarer Cancers Foundation chief executive Andrew Wilson said: “It is great news that thousands of patients have already benefited from the cancer drugs fund.

“However, we are concerned that nearly 200 patients have been denied life-extending treatment, despite money going unspent and the emergence of significant regional variations in approval rates.”