APPENDIX 25
Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
Mrs Helen Remington, Chief Pharmacist, Pharmacy Department, and
Dr Pippa Corrie, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Oncology Department,
Addenbrooke's NHS Trust, Cambridge
Please find attached at Annex 1 a copy of a
recently prepared paper relevant to the terms of your enquiry.
In the main it considers the problems of funding infrastructure
costs associated with cancer research.
From a survey conducted, it is evident that
few (if any) hospitals are funded appropriately to carry out research
effectively. The redistribution of research monies through the
"Culyer" initiative has not been delivered effectively
to oncology departments or their supporting pharmacy, radiology
and pathology departments.
The role of the pharmaceutical industry in cancer
research is to be applauded since without their sponsorship much
would be un-affordable. On the other hand we are conscious of
the benefit to them, in securing the necessary evidence base to
promote their products.
There is a need for a national strategy to ensure
that cancer research is properly and fairly costed and then resourced
to overcome the hurdles and barriers to research.
There is also a need to engage the Government
in a debate about the growing number of new oncology products
which are not identified on the NICE agenda. How will they be
assessed and how will they be funded and introduced uniformly
into practice, with the growing cost pressures in the service?
9 March 2000
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