West Midlands Cancer Drug Fund

Information for Patients:

A new cancer drugs fund was announced by the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health in July 2010.

The West Midlands has been given £5.4m by the Government to set up a regional cancer drug fund to help patients get access to new cancer drugs. 

This money is only available up to the end of March 2011 and like all finite NHS resources, it has to be used wisely. 

This fund will help those cancer patients who need access to drugs now before the national Cancer Drugs Fund for England replaces this in April next year.

NHS West Midlands (the Strategic Health Authority) has set up a process to make sure that the extra funding is used properly. Doctors will be put in charge of deciding how the funding is spent for their patients locally based on the advice of cancer specialists. A clinical panel of cancer specialists will decide how this extra funding is best used for their patients on the behalf of the 17 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in the West Midlands, including NHS Walsall.

More information is available from the NHS West Midlands website at

www.westmidlands.nhs.uk/WhatWeDo/WestMidlandsCancerDrugFund.aspx