§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make it his policy that every patient recommended by an NHS consultant for brachytherapy treatment has the treatment funded by a primary care trust; [144545]
(2) what the Government's policy on the funding of brachytherapy treatment by the national health service is. [144546]
877W
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) published guidance on the organisation and delivery of services for people with urological cancers, including prostate cancer, in September 2002. The guidance states that the option of brachytherapy should be discussed with men with early prostate cancer.
However, the NICE guidance also acknowledges that, the place of brachytherapy in the treatment of prostate cancer is uncertain and notes the importance of research to evaluate the effectiveness of brachytherapy for prostate cancer. The guidance refers to a randomised intergroup trial comparing brachytherapy with radical surgery that is being organised by the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group, and strongly encourages UK participation in this study. As a result, the Department of Health has made available £900,000 through the National Cancer Research Network (NCRN) to enable national health service patients to enter this trial. The National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) prostate cancer clinical studies group and the NCRN are working closely together to take this trial forward in the NHS.
As more evidence on the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of brachytherapy becomes available, the Department will consider whether this treatment is a suitable topic for referral to NICE as a technology appraisal. The Government are devolving power from the centre to enable primary care trusts to use the extra resources for the NHS to deliver on both national and local priorities for their communities, accounting publicly for how they have used them.