Issues with implementation

We know that variations continue to exist across the country in the usage of cancer drugs following a positive NICE appraisal. Reasons for these variations are a complicated mixture of constraints in service capacity, difference in practice, and conflicts in funding priorities.

In order to address these variations we need to know more about where, and why, they exist. Such complicated analyses require that good data to be collected about which drugs are being prescribed in which areas. We would like to see the Government collecting this data centrally, so we no longer have to rely on limited data.

NHS Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson, recently wrote to all PCTs to ask about their prescribing of branded drugs. We need to make sure that the results of this investigation are fed back to PCTs so they can compare their prescribing practices to those in other areas, and evaluate, in particular, how well they are managing the introduction of newly NICE-approved drugs.

There should be more onus on implementing NICE guidance at the local level, through the Care Quality Commission, who are currently charged with assessing implementation plans set in place by PCTs and more emphasis on funding NICE-approved drugs in the NHS operating framework.

 

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