Darren Millar
Labour Ministers should set aside their tribalism and establish a Welsh Cancer Treatments Fund to end the postcode lottery in access to life-extending treatments, Welsh Conservatives claimed today.
While figures out today show that across England and Wales more patients are living with cancer as survival rates rise, there are concerns that welsh patients are being left behind.
Welsh Conservatives have consistently campaigned for a Cancer Treatments Fund and the appointment of a Cancer Tsar, who could work with health boards to deliver improvements to services and waiting times.
The cost of a Cancer Treatments Fund has been estimated at £5million, but Welsh Labour Ministers have thus far refused to set one up, in spite of the existence of a similar fund which was established by the UK Government.
It has been estimated that 230 cancer patients in Wales have been denied life-extending drugs, which are readily available in other parts of the UK.
Last week, another cancer drug, Kadcyla, was rejected by NICE on cost grounds.
The drug will now be made available throughout England via the Cancer Drugs Fund, but patients in Wales will face a postcode lottery under the Individual Patient Funding Request System in each local health board, which only funds patients in exceptional circumstances.
The latest referral to treatment figures for urgent suspected cancer show the Welsh Government’s target has not been met once in the past six years.
An Assembly inquiry is currently on-going into the Welsh Government’s Cancer Delivery Plan, which has been condemned by clinicians for providing patients with ‘sub-optimal care’.
Darren Millar AM, Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Minister, said, “Rapid improvements in technology have helped improve survival rates amongst cancer patients, but there is more to do.
“Cancer patients in Wales are being let down by Labour’s tribalism and partisan refusal to follow the Conservatives’ lead in setting up a fund for cancer treatments.
“Cancer patients in England have a clear path to access cancer medicines, but in Wales the complex and incomprehensible route of exceptions committees represents a postcode lottery for patients.
“Patients with terminal cancer should be able to spend their final precious weeks and months with their loved ones, not fighting the NHS bureaucracy for life-extending medicines.
“A Cancer Treatments Fund for Wales would cost just £5million and could make a huge difference for patients and their families. Such an amount is affordable, despite the legacy of Labour’s record-breaking cuts to the Welsh NHS budget.
“Cancer patients in Wales are suffering with waiting time targets being routinely missed, concerns over care standards and inequity in access to medicines.
“Labour Ministers must ditch their dogma of rejecting a fund for party political reasons and start acting in the interests of Welsh cancer patients.”
