Latest NHS figures show that half of NHS trusts in England fail to meet the target for 85% of cancer patients to start treatment within 62 days of being urgently referred by a GP.
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The fund was launched in 2011 by David Cameron, who said that patients should no longer be denied treatment on grounds of cost.
Sixteen different medicines – used as twenty-three different cancer therapies – will no longer be offered to new patients by the scheme, triggering renewed calls for a different commissioning system that is fair and fit for goal.
The number of specialist breast cancer nurses is failing to keep pace with rates of diagnosis of the disease causing increasing pressure on the workforce, a charity has warned.
Abraxane to treat pancreatic cancer has been removed, alongside Kadcyla for breast cancer and Avastin for cervical cancer, breast cancer and bowel cancer.
The Rarer Cancers Foundation said nearly 1,800 patients with blood cancer would also now not receive treatment.
Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK’s director for early diagnosis, said: “The state of NHS diagnostic services is deeply concerning and new GP referral guidelines from NICE mean that even more patients will be waiting for these tests”. However, patients now receiving the treatment will continue to get the access.
Samia al Qadhi, Breast Cancer Care chief executive, said: “This devastating decision will mean shattered hopes for thousands of women who could have been helped by these drugs”.
Two myeloma drugs Imnovid (pomalidomide) and Revlimid, will no longer be funded on the NHS in England.
“It is completely unacceptable that, in 2015, this inflexible system is blocking access to life-extending treatments, like Kadcyla”.
However, the Rarer Cancers Foundation has described the cost-cutting measure as “a hammer blow to many thousands of desperately ill cancer patients”.
The research, produced by the University of Birmingham, says that the United Kingdom will need to increase levels of some tests by 44 per cent by 2020, in order to cope with growing demand from an ageing population, and a drive by health officials to ensure the NHS diagnoses more cases of cancer earlier.
For the financial year 2015/16, the CDF cash pot has been set at £340 million.
“We believe that the de-listing process, which we recognise will be distressing for cancer patients, could have been avoided if NICE and NHS England had transitioned earlier to a more appropriate, sustainable solution for evaluating and approving cancer medicines for routine use”, she said.
Just four years later, after the fund has overspent, the government has decided that cutbacks should now be made, with a third of all treatments that were originally funded no longer being. Yet again we will see more and more patients being denied proven, clinically effective, internationally recognised standards of treatment.
“The independent cancer taskforce report included a specific recommendation to improve outcomes for older patients, and we are working with others across the health system to take this forward as quickly as possible”.
When the fund was created, officials said it would pay for any treatment which an NHS consultant sought.
“Nothing in the clinical effectiveness of our medicines has changed since NHS England last reviewed them in January”.
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The move is part of a second reassessment of the CDF.
