Petition calls for Wales to have cancer drugs fund

Campaigners will deliver a nearly 100,000-signature petition to Welsh ministers demanding a fund to pay for specialist cancer treatments.

The petition will be handed to Welsh Conservatives at the Senedd who support the idea on Wednesday.

Health ministers in England set up a £200m a year cancer drugs fund in 2010.

But the Welsh government says there is no evidence it would improve either quality of life or survival rates in Wales.

English patients can access the cancer drugs fund to help pay for expensive medication not automatically available on the NHS, whereas Welsh patients must apply for health board funding through the Individual Patient Funding Request (IPFR) system.

Ann Wilkinson, from Usk in Monmouthshire, has obtained the specialist drug Avastin to treat her bowel cancer but her initial application was refused.

Ms Wilkinson will deliver the petition in Cardiff Bay.

‘Uncertainty’

The Welsh Conservatives point to research by the Rarer Cancers Foundation in 2013 that found patients in Wales are four times less likely to receive new treatment than those in England.

Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay, who will receive the petition, said: “Time and again we hear tragic stories of long, difficult battles to get hold of treatments and Ann Wilkinson’s case is a clear example of that.

“Labour’s decision not to introduce a cancer drugs fund in Wales is unnecessary, unfair and entirely wrong.”

A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We will not be replacing our system with a cancer drugs fund – the chair of the cancer drugs fund in England has admitted it provides funding for drugs which have ‘no impact on survival’ and ‘uncertainty’ about whether quality of life is improved or not.”

Meanwhile, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling for applications for specialist medicines in Wales to be dealt with by a national panel.

The party’s leader Kirsty Willliams said: “Patients are told different things in different parts of the country and that is simply unfair.” 

Source BBC News