Jerome Mayhew

That is the purpose of this debate: to encourage the Minister to get the NHS to change practice in this area. She could usefully start with the difficulty in licensing because second-generation medication is personalised. It does not have one or two active ingredients, but up to 20—that is probably not the right terminology but I hope we all understand—and the amounts of each of those active ingredients are personalised, in a patient-centric way. Yet we persist in applying a randomised controlled trial approach simply not appropriate for personalised medication. As a result, there is a failure to adopt licensing for medication that, anecdotally, is hugely effective, and has been hugely effective in supporting my constituent Charlie. It is not beyond the wit of man to design an appropriate licensing system for this kind of medication because it has been done effectively elsewhere. We could look at the examples of Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy and even some states in the United States of America. If they can do it, why can’t we? I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that question specifically. Why do we persist with randomised control trials when we know that that acts against the adoption of this kind of modern medicine? Why does the Minister think that the licensing approach in all those first-world countries is in some way dangerous or inadequate? Rather than repeating current policy, what change are the Government proposing to make to provide access through licensing for multiple active ingredient patient-centric dosing? What change are they proposing in relation to individual funding requests? Are they prepared to fix the problem of exceptionality, given that these drugs are routinely refused because they help too many children? This is a huge issue. An estimated 35,000 children are affected. I hope the Minister will not dole out sympathy alone in her response, but set out the active change that the Government intend to make.