Meeting of the Parliament 20 June 2018
In recent years, the Parliament has driven significant change in access to new medicines, for which the system is—rightly—independent of politicians. Reforms to the availability of new medicines for rare, very rare and end-of-life conditions mean that the Scottish Medicines Consortium now approves 79 per cent of submissions, which is up from 48 per cent between 2011 and 2013. A key change in the health technology assessment process has been to give the SMC greater latitude, when assessing medicines, to take into account patients’ lived experience.
On Monday, I announced a further change. From October, defined ultra-orphan medicines—those for the rarest conditions—will be made available on the national health service for at least three years, while information about their results is gathered. The SMC will also have flexibility to allow some orphan medicines to go through the ultra-orphan process when it considers that appropriate. At my request, the Scottish Government’s chief pharmaceutical officer has written to ask the SMC to determine whether Orkambi might be considered in that way.
We have changed the system for individual access to medicines that are not generally available on the NHS. Under the new peer-approved clinical system—PACS tier 2—the cost of a medicine has since 1 June been explicitly excluded from decision-making criteria when a clinician’s request for individual access is considered.
In recent years, we have ensured that the rebate that comes to Scotland as part of the UK’s pharmaceutical price regulation scheme has been invested in access to new medicines. We will ensure that that continues.