Current Petitions

Item 4 on our agenda is consideration of current petitions. I welcome back to the committee Tina McGeever, who is in the public gallery. Her petition PE1108, on behalf of Mike Gray, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to consider the provision of cancer treatment drugs—in particular cetuximab—on the national health service to ensure equity across NHS boards in relation to the appropriateness, effectiveness and availability of such treatments. Tina has been pursuing the matter with incredible vigour and energy, and she has supported the committee in our process.I seek members’ views on how we should continue to deal with the petition.

What we have here is the result of a petitioner working with the committee, and the committee, in turn, working with the minister and the Scottish Government. A lot of progress has been made in respect of the terms of the petition, which should continue to be recognised.We have before us a draft letter from the convener, which—if we send it—sets out a range of questions for the cabinet secretary on the draft chief executive letter guidance. The letter raises a number of important additional points on which we would like a bit more clarity and encapsulates many of the comments that have been made by the petitioner, Tina McGeever. On that basis, I think that we should send that letter to the cabinet secretary.I raise a couple of points on which the convener’s draft letter touches, the first of which relates to exceptional prescribing requests. I know that that issue is largely covered in annexes C and D of the draft CEL, which is to be welcomed in broad terms. However, the convener’s draft letter makes points about the language that is used, which could lead to the guidance being less than binding on NHS boards. We would not wish that to happen, as it could lead—inadvertently, I am sure—to the postcode prescribing that we seek to avoid. In other words, it could risk regional variations. We must make the guidance as prescriptive as is necessary, so that boards are under an instruction to do what the guidance says; we must not just assume that that will happen.The convener’s draft letter also refers to the lack of reference in the guidance to the appointment of local liaison officers, which is something that the committee suggested in paragraph 85 of its report, “Availability on the NHS of cancer treatment drugs”. I hope that the cabinet secretary will agree that that omission needs to be rectified.All in all, many of the issues that were raised in the petition have been addressed thoroughly. I hope that, if we agree to send the convener’s draft letter, the cabinet secretary’s response will bridge any gaps that there may be in the guidance that has been worked out. We therefore find ourselves in a very positive place.

I absolutely agree with what Bill Butler has just said. I have had some contact from the pharmaceutical industry via its representative body, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. It says that things have moved on significantly but that one or two issues remain to be addressed, which we could add to the convener’s draft letter. The association states in an e-mail:“Medicines that are accepted by SMC, or their equivalents, are expected to be available within NHSScotland”.The question is asked:“How do ADTCs appraise which medicines are deemed equivalent? There should at least be transparency around this decision and the equivalent medicines named, so that patients and clinicians are aware of which equivalent medicines should be used in place of an SMC accepted medicine.”A related point is:“Patient access to SMC accepted medicines that are not put on the NHS Board formulary needs to be quick and easy.”To access those approved drugs, patients“should not have to resort to individual treatment ... requests.”That is perhaps another point to highlight.Regarding patient and public involvement, the association states:“NHS Boards should be required to do more than just make information available. There should be opportunity to input into ADTC processes.”Finally, the association suggests that“The SMC has a very good model for patient and public involvement.”The Scottish Government could ask health boards to mirror that. I will pass on the e-mail to the clerks.

That would be helpful.We want to pursue the matter. My letter will be framed in line with the structure of our inquiry and report. We will follow through on the areas in which we want to get consistency from the Government, to try to progress some of the issues on which the Government has been responsive. We will take forward those points. The clerk suggests that we may want to get a response from the Government before the CEL goes out; we will explore whether that is possible.

That would be appropriate. We do not want the Government to send out something that must be corrected or revised almost immediately.

I thank members for their time and the petitioner for her patience.