Cancer Drugs Fund and Government Fund

A new report on the effectiveness of the Cancer Drug Fund set up in 2010 is pretty scathing and covers many aspects of government failure.

The author of the report Professor Richard Sullivan, from King's College London, described the policy as "policy on the hoof ....Populism doesn't work when you are dealing with complex areas of policy like this. When it was launched it was not monitored properly. It was politically and intellectually lazy."

Supporters of the fund has countered by arguing that spending on experimental drugs gave patients the invaluable benefit of extra months of life.