New cancer medicines: Joint working between the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry

NHS perspective on individual funding requests (IFRs)

Dr Mike Guy (Medical Director, NHS North of Tyne) talked about the impact of decision making at primary care trust (PCT) level and what happens when there are drugs that either NICE or a group like NECDAG are not able to approve—particularly when patients come to the PCT via their clinician with IFRs or requests for treatment under the umbrella of ‘exceptional circumstances’.

Dr Guy discussed patients’ rights to treatment under the new NHS Constitution and how that meant that the PCT had to have policies in place to deal with requests and, in turn, how a group like NECDAG might support the PCT. Concern was expressed about the number of IFRs that were coming through under the banner of ‘exceptional circumstance’ when the reality was that, for the majority, no exceptional circumstance existed.

Dr Guy discussed the very personal nature of these requests from the point of view of both the clinician and the patient, and how emotional and difficult decisions related to them could be. He concluded that PCTs are facing increasing financial challenges and that while these funding requests only account for a very small proportion of the PCT budget, they take up huge amounts of time and emotional energy.

Page 4 of 14

Previous Page Next Page

---