Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the performance of the current data collection infrastructure and its capability to collect real world data in the way outlined in NHS England’s plans for a new Cancer Drugs Fund; and if he will make a statement.

George Freeman

Public Health England’s (PHE) National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service is the only national patient-level data source that collects data including outcomes on the whole care pathway on all patients diagnosed with cancer in England. Data are collected from all National Health Service trusts include information on Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy.

There is presently no agreement between NHS England and PHE to provide outcome information on patients receiving Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) funded treatments, on a regular basis. However, PHE and NHS England are currently in discussion to establish a dedicated resource to provide routine and bespoke information and analysis, and this could include defined outcome analyses on the CDF.

The Accelerated Access Review (AAR) is also looking at ways to better harness data to support the assessment, adoption and reimbursement of innovative treatments, and discussions are ongoing around the scope for aligning the revised CDF with the AAR recommendations.