Spend on cancer per patient in England 2006 - 2007

£10,539

Compare this with other PCTs: highest amount spent was £17,028, lowest was £5,182, and average PCT spend per cancer patient was £8,437.

Exceptional funding for cancer treatment

The following information was requested from the PCT in 2008 under the Freedom of Information Act.

Written protocols
The PCT has a policy for assessing exceptional requests for treatment, which includes cancer treatments and treatments which NICE has either not considered or not recommended.  Exceptional requests are dealt with by the Individual Treatment Panel.

Individual Treatment Panel
Membership is as follows:

• Chair - non-executive director
• Director of Public Health (or nominated deputy)
• Director of Commissioning (or nominated deputy)
• Other Director (or nominated deputy)
• At least one of the directors must have a medical background

Cancer treatments funded by PCT following exceptional requests

From October 2006 to June 2008, five applications for cancer treatment were approved by the PCT. These were:

• Erlotinib (Tarceva)
• Docetaxel
• Herceptin
• Paclitaxel
• Caelyx

Cancer treatments not funded by PCT following exceptional requests

From October 2006 to June 2008, 11 cancer treatments were not funded. They were:

• Erlotinib (Tarceva) - six patients with early breast cancer
• Radionuclide therapy (MIBG) - one patient
• Docetaxel - one patient with early breast cancer
• Sunitinib - one patient with metastatic renal carcinoma
• Pemetrexed/Cisplatin - one patient
• Lenalidomide - one patient with multiple myeloma