Alex Salmond urged to axe free prescriptions to fund cancer drugs

But the First Minister said that individual NHS patients could still be treated with abiraterone after it was rejected by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) earlier in the week.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson called on the SNP Government to set up a Scottish cancer drugs fund, along the lines a similar scheme being run south of the Border.

During First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Miss Davidson said that “12,000 people have had their lives extended” through the English fund, and asked why “the same opportunity to cancer sufferers in Scotland” had been refused.

It followed widespread anger that the drug, used to keep Abdelbaset al-Megrahi alive in recent years, won’t be extended to the wider population.

The Tory leader said: “The First Minister chose to find £50 million to give free prescriptions to people like himself who can afford to pay for them, but he is choosing not to find a more modest sum to extend and improve the lives of Scots with fatal conditions.

“Will the First Minister now make a different choice? Will he now, 14 months down the line, after countless premature deaths, reconsider, intervene and support a Scottish cancer drugs fund?”

Cancer sufferers could still access the drug through “individual patient treatment requests”, Mr Salmond said.

There have been 126 of these requests recently, of which 87 were approved, he told MSPs.

He added that three-fifths of drugs rejected for use on the NHS are subsequently approved once pharmaceutical companies resubmit them on “a more reasonable cost basis”.

Mr Salmond insisted that firms have an obligation to make drugs available to the NHS “at a cost that can be afforded”.

Abiraterone costs about £3,000 for a month’s supply and was rejected by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) earlier this week.

Mr Salmond said: “The drug company concerned has indicated that it is going to go back and resubmit. The SMC has the extraordinarily difficult task of judging the efficacy of treatment against the budgetary constraints that inevitably apply in any health service.

“If the position of the SMC, or NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) for that matter in England, was to accept every submission that came forward, it would be impossible to sustain the drugs budget.

“They have to do it on criteria, and I do think Ruth Davidson should pay attention to what a number of the cancer charities have been saying about the obligations on the drugs companies with new drugs coming forward to try and make them available to the NHS at a cost that can be afforded.”

Mr Salmond also said that the English fund is not “substantially supported”.

He cited cancer charities Myeloma UK, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Macmillan Cancer Support, who said the fund does “not address the root causes” of why patients may be denied access to treatment.