Minister hails cancer treatment access as project examines drug effectiveness
Scotland is one of the best countries in the world for cancer patients to be able to access new treatments, Health Secretary Shona Robison has said.
Scotland is one of the best countries in the world for cancer patients to be able to access new treatments, Health Secretary Shona Robison has said.
She was speaking as she announced £300,000 of funding for a new scheme to investigate if the latest medicines are as effective in real life as they are in clinical trials.
The Cancer Medicines Outcome Programme (CMOP) is a three-year collaboration between NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and academics at Strathclyde University.
The project, which is part of the Scottish Government's cancer strategy, will receive £1 million of Government cash over the three years.
Ms Robison said: "We've dramatically increased access to new medicines, particularly for cancer, due to our recent reforms and investment and Scotland is now one of the top nations in the world for accessing new medicines for cancer."
Ministers have already announced changes are to be made to the system that considers what drugs can be made available on the NHS in a bid to ensure more patients with rare or terminal diseases get the treatment they need.
The reforms suggested in the Montgomery Review will mean the body which approves medicines will be allowed to make drugs available on an interim basis so their effectiveness can be assessed.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium will also be allowed to consider if treatments are available in other parts of the UK.
Ms Robison said the Scottish Government would be "taking forward the recommendations from Dr Brian Montgomery's recent review into access to new medicines, in collaboration with partners and stakeholders across Scotland - including the NHS, third sector and pharmaceutical industry - over the coming weeks and months".
She added: "In particular, Dr Montgomery recommended that we should develop, agree and implement data sets for cancer - this is a vital first step towards achieving that."
Norman Lannigan, head of the pharmacy and prescribing support unit at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said: "Most of the current information about the efficacy and side effects of cancer medicines is obtained through the results of clinical trials. Clinical trials have specific requirements for patients participating and may not fully reflect our own patient population.
"However, this programme will build on our existing work analysing the outcomes of medicines in our own patients as well as the wider impact of cancer medicines on patient quality of life.
"This is a very labour intensive process, however the project funding from the Scottish Government will allow us to examine data in a more efficient way.
"Our vision is to develop a process which provides feedback to our cancer care clinicians on local outcomes. This real life data on the benefits, and side effects, of cancer medicines can then be used to identify supportive care needs as well as inform shared clinical decision-making between clinicians and patients."
Marion Bennie, the academic principal investigator for the project and professor of pharmacy at the University of Strathclyde, said: "This programme builds on our work to apply real-world data to better understand how we can use medicines to support patient care.
"It will examine the clinical outcomes from cancer therapies by linking together routinely captured anonymised health data, helping us to gain a better understanding of who will benefit - and who may experience adverse events - from new cancer therapies."