Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must be careful of the law of unintended consequences with this piece of legislation. Commercial decisions will be taken on investment if the return is not sufficiently high, so we have to get the balance right between encouraging investment and getting value for money for the taxpayer The BMJ report showed how NHS England, having been unable to budget for broad access to the drugs I mentioned, sought to alter the outcome of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence process and, when it failed, defied NICE’s authority by rationing access to those drugs. There was also widespread controversy over attempts by NHS England to avoid funding anti-HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis by passing on responsibility to local authorities at the same time as cutting the public health budget allocated to councils. If we are to strive to create a level playing field for drugs companies, we should look to do the same for patients and their ability to access treatments Labour established NICE to speed up the introduction of clinically proven and cost-effective new medicines and procedures. An order was made by Parliament in 2001 to mandate the funding of healthcare interventions approved by NICE through its technical appraisal process. They were intended to be available to patients three months after publication of the appraisal. However, subsequent orders have chipped away at that, culminating in the current consultation by NICE and NHS England, which will again potentially delay or deny access to important treatments. Therefore, as well as looking at ring-fencing the payments received under this scheme, will the Minister look more widely at access to medicines? Successive studies have demonstrated that there is relatively low take-up of new medicines by the UK compared with other high-income countries. Not only does that let patients down, but it could impact on the future of the pharmaceutical industry in the UK, particularly given the sector’s concerns about the relatively small value of sales in the UK, compared with other countries, and given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the European Medicines Agency following our decision to leave the European Union I am sure Ministers are aware of the concerns that have been raised about that and of the need to ensure that the country is still seen as a leader in the research sector. The Prime Minster has said: "It is hard to think of an industry of greater strategic importance to Britain than its pharmaceutical industry", and the Opposition agree, but we cannot be complacent about the state of UK pharma, particularly as investment decisions are often made by parent companies based in other parts of the world. I hope the Minister will take seriously the interrelationship between decisions about access to treatments and the future of pharmaceutical research and development in the UK, particularly when we know that other countries across Europe are using the current uncertainty as a result of Brexit to eye up opportunities to steal a march on our own industry To conclude, the Opposition support the broad aims of the Bill and what the Government seek to achieve in terms of better controlling the cost of medicines. In Committee, we will seek to explore in more detail the new information powers and the details of the impact of those new powers on the supply chain. We will also continue to hold the Government to account and ensure that patients are able to access the best available treatments without any unnecessary delay.