Key Cancer drugs more accessible to Patients in England

According to a new report by the Guardian, the English are more likely than the Scottish to obtain drugs prescribed by their physicians thereby causing a “devastating divide” between England, and Scotland or Wales in terms of their cancer drugs accessibility.

The Rarer Cancers Foundation used the Freedom of Information Act to gather information from health trusts in England to determine what types of drugs are approved through the government’s cancer drugs fund. This was compared with exceptional-case approvals for the same drugs in Scotland and Wales.

The findings of the analysis suggest that key cancer drugs are three times and five times more accessible to patients in England than to those in Scotland and Wales, respectively.

Chief executive of the RCF, Andrew Wilson, noted, “A cancer drug does not become any less effective simply because it is prescribed on the other side of a border. Nor does a patient’s need become any less pressing.”