CANCER DRUGS FUND (NEW) and Non-PbR
Posted in News
The new Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) was set up in April 2016 to provide faster access to new treatments for specific indications. In the 3.5 years since it was established, there have been 157 different versions of the Cancer Drugs Fund list with frequent changes to the drug/indication pairs included.
At the time of the inception of the new Cancer Drugs Fund, Tags were created in Define for each iteration of the list where there was a change to the listed drugs. This approach has become increasing less useful as NICE has approved more treatments for routine funding, while other indications for the same drug are funded via the Cancer Drugs Fund. A specific example of this Pembrolizumab which has seven indications receiving funding via the CDF and five for which routine commissioning has been mandated. Similarly, NICE has approved a number of treatments pending the outcome of ongoing clinical trials, but where funding will be provided via the Cancer Drugs Fund.
For these reasons, the Tags for the Cancer Drugs Fund were considered to be of limited value, and further diminishing over time with increased routine funding for many indications, and are no longer maintained in their previous form.
Drug/indications included in the Cancer Drugs Fund ae excluded from Payment by Result (PbR) and had been included in the Non-PbR Tag. However, since it not possible within the data to limit the use of a drug to an indication, all of the drugs included in the Cancer Drugs Fund and not listed in the National Tariff have been removed from the Non-PbR Tag.