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National panel needed for cancer treatment 'fair access', say AMs | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
A national panel should be established to ensure patients across Wales have fair access to new cancer treatments, an assembly committee has concluded. | |
Clinicians told the health committee that doctors and health boards used the application process in different ways. | |
AMs were told this could cause delays in patients receiving treatment and also anxiety for patients. | |
Conservatives said the report confirmed their claims that the process of accessing cancer medicines was unfair. | |
The report follows the committee's inquiry into the Welsh government's Cancer Delivery Plan to 2016, which aims to improve prevention, detection, treatment, care and research. | |
The document says that health professionals agreed that the application process for new cancer treatments "was not always good at ensuring fair access to cancer treatments, especially if a small group of patients all applied for the same treatment or new treatments became available". | |
'Clear remit' | |
"They said that doctors used the process in different ways and health boards made decisions differently, which could cause a delay in patients getting treatments and cause anxiety," the report notes. | |
The committee recommends that a national panel should be established "to make sure that applications for individual patient funding from people across Wales are considered fairly". | |
The report also concludes the strategy needs "stronger leadership" to succeed. | |
It says a body with a "clear remit" and the "necessary resources" is needed for local plans to be achieved by the seven health boards in Wales. | |
Committee chair David Rees said AMs had been told that "without stronger national leadership there is a risk that the plan's aspirations will not be realised by 2016". | |
"On that basis, we ask the minister [Health Minister Mark Drakeford] to ensure that there is a body with a clear remit, and the necessary resources, to provide drive and leadership at a national level, and hold health boards to account for the delivery of their local plans". | |
But the committee found the Cancer Delivery Plan had made progress in some areas in its first two years, including in research, screening and end of life care. | |
Conservative shadow health minister Darren Millar said: "This cross-party report confirms what cancer patients and Welsh Conservatives have been saying for years: the process of accessing cancer medicines is unfair, not fit for purpose and must be overhauled. | |
"For years, Labour ministers have denied the existence of a postcode lottery and refused calls to set up a Cancer Treatments Fund, to ensure parity with other parts of the UK." |