Chamber and committees

<>The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) operates independently from Scottish Government and information on the numbers of medicines appraised and recommended is not collected centrally. The SMC do publish such details, however, and can be obtained from their website at http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk.

There are no immediate plans to audit cardiac rehabilitation services given that a two-year cardiac rehabilitation audit had just been completed as part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Heart Disease Improvement Programme.

The results of the audit are published on Information Service’s Division’s website at: http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Heart-Disease/Publications/index.asp#971.

We expect that this audit, which is the most comprehensive audit of this type in the UK, will be invaluable in supporting NHS boards to improve cardiac rehabilitation services.

Information on the number of successful and unsuccessful Individual Patient Treatment Requests made to NHS boards is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for routine use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment requests).

Guidance on IPTR arrangements was published on 17 May 2010 and took full effect from 1 April 2011. This was followed up by the issue of good practice guidance on 18 March 2011 and further advice on 13 February 2012 following a clinical group review of extant guidance. The Scottish Government has also committed to monitor NHS board progress in implementing guidance on the introduction and availability of newly licensed medicines in the NHS in Scotland.

Information on the number of successful and unsuccessful individual patient treatment requests made to NHS boards is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for routine use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment requests).

Information on the number of successful and unsuccessful Individual Patient Treatment Requests made to NHS boards since 1999 is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for routine use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment requests).

Information on the number of successful and unsuccessful Individual Patient Treatment Requests made to NHS Boards is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for routine use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment requests).

Guidance on IPTR arrangements was published on 17 May 2010 and took full effect from 1 April 2011. This was followed up by the issue of good practice guidance on 18 March 2011 and further advice on 13 February 2012 following a clinical group review of extant guidance. The Scottish Government has also committed to monitor NHS board progress in implementing guidance on the introduction and availability of newly licensed medicines in the NHS in Scotland.

Information on the number of successful and unsuccessful Individual Patient Treatment Requests made to NHS boards since 1999 is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for routine use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment requests).

The latest costs available relate to 2010-11 and are as follows:

(a) £27,599,833

(b) £59,647,022

(c) £8,583,106

More information on prescribing costs is available on the ISD Scotland website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Prescribing-and-Medicines/Community-Dispensing/Prescription-Cost-Analysis/.

Data on the use of individual medicines by NHS boards is not held centrally. NHS boards are expected to maintain an overview of the effectiveness of their local arrangements for the introduction of new medicines, including NHS board decisions on SMC accepted medicines and management of Individual Patient Treatment Requests (IPTRs) for medicines not recommended by the SMC. NHS boards were reminded of their responsibilities in this regard in additional guidance for NHS boards published on 13 February 2012.

The Scottish Government committed to monitor NHS board progress in implementing the guidance on the introduction and availability of newly licensed medicines in the NHS in Scotland which was published on 17 May 2010. As part of these arrangements, NHS boards were asked to provide summary data on medicines funded through the Individual Patient Treatment Request (IPTRs) arrangements over the period 1 April 2011 to 30 September 2011. The data provided by NHS boards indicates that bevacizumab was prescribed for one patient and cetuximab was prescribed for five patients during this period.

The information available from the ISD Scotland Hospital Medicines Utilisation Database (HMUD) on expenditure on cancer medicines in the financial year 2010-11 is shown in the following table. Cancer medicines have been defined as Section 8.1 – cytotoxic drugs and Section 8.3 – sex hormones and hormone antagonists in malignant disease, of the British National Formulary (BNF).

Amount that the Hospital Medicines Utilisation Database recorded as being spent on cancer medicines for each NHS board in financial year 2010-11

NHS Board	Expenditure
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	£ 3,739,424
NHS Borders	£ 999,318
NHS Dumfries and Galloway 1	£ 1,519,791
NHS Fife	£ 2,409,888
NHS Forth Valley	£ 2,198,306
NHS Golden Jubilee	£ 1,069
NHS Grampian	£ 5,559,977
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	£10,241,620
NHS Highland 2	£ 74,186
NHS Lanarkshire	£ 4,686,626
NHS Lothian	£ 8,300,884
NHS Orkney	£ 72,361
NHS Shetland 3	£ 132,975
NHS Tayside 4	£ 1,548,398
NHS Western Isles	£ 174,171
NHS Scotland	£41,658,993

Notes:

Figures cover April 2010 – March 2011, except for some boards with incomplete data:

1. NHS Dumfries and Galloway, data covers April 2010- February 2011

2. NHS Highland did not provide any data. Small amount shown based on reported information from other NHS boards

3. NHS Shetland, data covers April 2010 – December 2010

4. NHS Tayside, data covers April 2010 – July 2010.