William Graham (Conservative AM for South Wales East) speaking in Plenary debate calling upon the Welsh Government to establish a Cancer Drugs Fund.
William highlighted that the Health budget in Wales is being cut by 5.8% over the next 3 years. NHS funding per head in England will grow £1,926 per head in 2009-10 to £2,035 in 2012-13; in this time funding in Wales will fall from £2,075 to around £2,002 per year.
“It has been verified that each year £1 billion of the Welsh NHS budget is not utilised effectively as a result of ‘extremely costly’ mistakes; more than £50 million of medicines are returned to pharmacies unused, and must be incinerated. This is money which is literally going up in smoke that could otherwise be used to provide life-prolonging treatments”.
I acknowledge the MacMillan Cancer Support claim that the present system is ill-equipped to deal with the growing number of people needing help; services are not keeping up with the changing nature of cancer and their on going needs.”
“Cancer treatments are changing. Increasingly the focus is upon recovery and cure”. A Welsh Cancer Drugs Fund would direct treatment to the most effective drug for each individual patient’s requirements”.
