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Meeting of the Parliament 20 February 2013

20 Feb 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

New Medicines

Baillie, Jackie Lab Dumbarton Watch on SPTV

I welcome the opportunity to debate access to new medicines in the NHS and the tone of the speeches made by Jackson Carlaw and the cabinet secretary. I also welcome the new medicines review that the cabinet secretary has initiated.

It is right that we consider how the SMC operates. Although its work is highly regarded, it is nevertheless operating under certain constraints as a result of the criteria that the Scottish Government has set. Equally, it is right that we review IPTRs. Clinicians and patients have made it clear to us that those are an obstacle to patients getting the medicines that they need and that the approach varies across Scotland, and we must consider those comments.

Like the SNP, Labour did not support the cancer drugs fund, not because it was proposed by the Tories but partly because we genuinely believed that other equally serious conditions also needed improved access to medicine and that an emphasis on early treatment and a preventative approach led to better outcomes. The operation of the cancer drugs fund in England has also led to a bit of a postcode lottery in places, which is not, I believe, desirable.

That said, the current IPTR system is no longer acceptable. Clinician after clinician came before the Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee to criticise it—and they were very brave to do so. They were being placed in the invidious position of recommending patients who they knew would benefit from the drug required in the knowledge that their chances of securing agreement from the health board were very slim.

Let me point members to the words of Dr Stephen Harrow, who is a consultant oncologist at the Beatson. He told the committee that he works in a deprived area in the west of Scotland and that he has to tell patients that there are more drugs that are not available than drugs that they can access.

It took the shocking case of Iain Morrison, which was highlighted in the chamber, to prompt action. He is a man with bowel cancer who had to pay £1,700 a fortnight for the drugs that help to prolong his life. The NHS charged him VAT and an administration fee for the privilege. Thankfully, he now has access to the drugs, but I understand that that took more than one request and the assistance of his constituency MSP.

We heard the case of Anne Fisher, who is a mother of three from Greenock who has cancer. She cannot get access here to drugs that would be available if she lived in England. That simply cannot be right by any measure.

There is also the case of a constituent of mine, whom I shall call Mrs Smith, although that is not her real name. In 2007, Mrs Smith was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Her daughter and her husband contacted my office in 2012 after she had had two IPTRs and appeals rejected. As a result of tests that experts carried out, we know that she would benefit from a 12-week course of cetuximab. Her third IPTR last October was also unsuccessful. In another health board area, she would have been given the treatment.

I say to the cabinet secretary that that simply cannot go on. Whatever the outcome of the review, the cabinet secretary must ensure that, at the very least, there is not that appalling postcode lottery in Scotland. Access to medicines must improve, and there must be consistency of application across all the 14 health boards in Scotland.

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Meeting of the Parliament 20 February 2013

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