10/04/2010

Robin Walker spent Saturday morning speaking to people on Worcester's High Street, explaining his party's plans to help the NHS and signing people up to the Conservative campaign to provide more cancer drugs on the NHS.

By saving the NHS the £200 million it would otherwise be paying in National Insurance and matching the government's plans to increase funding to the NHS over coming years, the Conservatives plan to make additional funds available for providing some of the drugs for treating rarer cancers.

The Government has already set aside some money for this but has so far failed to provide drugs for a number of cancer sufferers, leaving NICE to ration provision in a number of areas. Whilst the Conservatives support NICE, and believe it is right that these decisions are taken by clinicians and not politicians, they have been concerned about the increasing number of medicines which have been refused.  Not one new cancer drug assessed since November 2008 has been fully recommended and in more than a quarter of cases the drug assessed has not been recommended at all.

The Conservative plans will use both the money already set aside and the hundreds of millions that the NHS will save by not having to pay higher national insurance next year, to provide more drugs for rarer cancers sooner. Over the long term the Conservatives want to introduce a system of ‘value-based pricing' for medicines, whereby pharmaceutical companies are paid according to the value of their new treatments.

After a morning of campaigning on this issue, signing up many people on the spot and handing out hundreds of pledge cards, Robin said

"It is clear that people in Worcester back our plans to stop the increase in National Insurance and it is important to remember that this will not just help jobs and the recovery, it will also benefit our NHS. Gordon Brown's increasingly desperate pleas that by not increasing the tax on jobs we would be taking billions "out of the economy" have been exposed for the absurdity they are. Hundreds of millions being left in the hands of the NHS and made available for cancer treatments is clearly good news."