Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:43 pm on 10 January 2017.
It is the case that, if a Cabinet Secretary or Minister in any part of the UK comes forward with additional money to assist in the accessibility of drugs that have proved problematic over the years, and indeed have also, through the administrative process, proved cumbersome in getting those approvals through for patients who have got life-limiting conditions, that decision is definitely going to be warmly welcomed, Cabinet Secretary. I very much hope that, obviously, you do see this through and you make sure that we’re not, in 12 months, 18 months or two years, still talking about administrative blockages within our LHBs that prevent people from accessing the drugs that NICE and the All Wales Medicines Strategies Group have approved. The problem that is always at the crux of this is the drugs that are not approved. You have touched on the fact that you’ll be bringing forward another statement in the coming weeks and months around the IPFR process, and AMs from across the Chamber here have worked on an all-party basis, highlighting issues around this particular issue. It is this issue that, time and time again, really comes to the root cause of many families, many patients, and indeed many clinicians’ issues about accessing life-enhancing and life-improving drugs that haven’t got over the initial trials but show promising progress in the development work that has been undertaken by the pharmaceutical companies. Am I correct to assume that this money that you’ve announced today will do nothing to assist the IPFR process, and that the money that you have announced today is not available to the IPFR process to assist patients or clinicians in making decisions about attracting funding for those medicines? In particular, on cystic fibrosis, for example, Orkambi—I hope I’ve pronounced that right; I think you’re familiar with the drug because of, I think, a constituent of yours and mine, but I’m not asking you to comment on the constituent because I appreciate that you can’t do that—would not be available under the scheme that you’ve announced today, because, while it has had promising trials, it has not been approved by NICE. Is that the case? And can you appreciate the frustration and the importance, now, of a very quick turnaround in any deliberations you may be having to solve the blockage that has been in the IPFR process here in Wales?