Earlier this week Mark Garnier MP was interviewed by the BBC about the touch and go availability of expensive cancer drugs on the NHS and the benefits of the Government's Cancer Drugs Fund to combat this.
Speaking to Midlands Today, Mark was addressing the campaign of Kris Griffin, a resident of Kidderminster, who is against plans to discontinue the leukaemia drug Dasatinib for patients on the NHS.
Mr Griffin, 36, was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) four years ago and said the Dasatinib drug had saved his life. However, it costs £30,000 per patient and NHS advisory body NICE said evidence for the drug's effectiveness was weak.
Mark, who has written to Earl Howe, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State with special responsibility for NICE, about Mr Griffin's case said:
"Firstly I will say that it is important that NICE are there to provide expert guidance on highly complex issues such as drug effectiveness and funding allocation. I firmly believe that it would be counterproductive to have politicians making hot headed decisions when there are people's lives at stake.
However, I also believe that it is fundamentally important that UK citizens have access to every cancer treatment that is available to them. This is why the Government have set up the Cancer Drugs Fund to ensure this. With £200 million available per year, this fund is to pay for additional treatments, which the NHS does not currently pay for, and can be accessed through doctors on behalf of patients. There is £21 million available just for the West Midlands, of which only 37% has been used. With this money we will hopefully see many more lives like Kris' saved and achieve cancer survival rates among the best in the world."