NEWS XXXX


First price restrictions for Cancer Drugs Fund


Forty-two of the drugs available through the over-subscribed Cancer Drugs Fund, which went £30m over-budget in 2013, are to be assessed to ensure they deliver enough benefit to justify their cost.


Drugs to be reviewed include


Kadcyla, which extends life by an average of six months and costs £90,000 a course, and Avastin, for breast and bowel cancer.


Ten new drugs will also be evaluated for inclusion. No patient will be taken off their medication because of the policy shift.


Cancer charities have expressed “deep concern” that effective drugs could be lost from the Fund, though others have said a longer- term solution to unaffordable drug prices is needed. A national panel of patient representatives, doctors and pharmacists, will meet in mid- December.


Hunt calls on NHS to deliver £10bn a year efficiency savings


The NHS must save up to £10bn a year by 2020 by reducing its use of agency staff and management consultants, selling off unused property and cutting clinical errors, the health secretary has said.


Speaking at the King’s Fund annual conference in London in mid-November, Jeremy Hunt said: “If we are to be truly financially sustainable we need to rethink


how we spend money in a much more fundamental way.”


The health secretary said cutting prescription


errors could save


£551m, while selling off some of the NHS’s estimated £7.5bn worth of surplus land and buildings could yield major one-off savings, including £1.5bn in London alone.


He is also targeting agency


staffing bills, which have soared by £1bn to almost £2.5bn during this


Parliament, and believes


using fewer management consultants would save £500m from the annual bill.


Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “The hypocrisy of Hunt gets worse by the day. He slashed nurse training places and left hospitals at the mercy of


“He should put his own house in order first.


“David Cameron spent more than £1bn on pay-offs for NHS managers during the


organisation – a scandalous waste of money when patient care is heading backwards.”


NHS winter fund gets £300m boost as Keogh urges use of pharmacists not A&E


Ill people are being encouraged to visit their pharmacists for mild and common conditions this winter, as A&E departments and GP surgeries face unsustainable mounting pressure and the Department of Health prepares for a surge in demand over winter.


Health secretary Jeremy Hunt also announced an additional £300m to help boost the NHS through winter by paying for more staff and extra bed space. Combined with the previously announced


£400m winter pot, it represents a 75% increase in winter funding compared with last year.


From the new money £25m will go towards widening access to GPs and £50m will top up ambulance services. It will also pay for the equivalent of 1,000 extra doctors, 2,000 extra nurses and up to 2,500 extra beds.


But Hunt warned that A&E could not continue to cope with the brunt of the extra demand, pointing out


it was already receiving a million more visits each year than in 2010. Emergency admissions are rising by up to 4% a year.


Dr Maureen Baker, chair of the Royal Collage of GPs, said: “The best way to alleviate pressures on A&E and other services in secondary care – and to ensure that our patients receive the care that they need and deserve – is to improve access to general practice.”


The BMA said the money was a mere “sticking plaster” and that a long-term plan is needed. Many emergency departments had already experienced “spring, summer and autumn crises” in addition to the looming winter one, said its chair of council Dr Mark Porter.


People are being encouraged to visit pharmacists instead. NHS England


managing director, Bruce Keogh, said: “In 6 | national health executive Nov/Dec 14 Sir other


parts of Europe pharmacies are very well-used. Our GPs, frankly,


during the winter feel really under strain with people coming in with coughs and colds. A lot of that strain could be relieved if people use pharmacies more.”


The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS’s) president Ash Soni OBE said: “I agree with Sir Bruce: pharmacists are an under- used resource in Great Britain.


“Pharmacists are central to relieving the ever-increasing demand on GPs and A&E staff, enabling those professionals to focus their skills on diagnosing and treating patients needing their care. Greater access to community pharmacists will be of huge benefit to patients, doctors, nurses and the bank balance of the NHS.”


Earlier this year NHE reported on a study from the RPS that showed that A&E visits could be cut by 650,000 and GP consultations by 18 million if NHS England was to provide a national common ailment service through community pharmacies.


expensive agencies and overseas recruitment.


re-


© AP Photo, Genentech Inc.


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