Hello everyone,
New health technologies to improve outcomes for UK brain tumour patients aren’t being made available as quickly as the urgent need demands. Worse still in some cases – they aren’t even being appraised for market suitability.
Tumour Treating Fields (TTFields) is a relatively new technology that is being widely adopted in other countries – the US, Germany, France, Sweden and more. This week we heard that Spain is the latest country to make this technology available on their equivalent of the NHS. Globally, 35,000 people have now used it, but it is not available on the NHS in the UK.
Thank you to all of you who took action to write to your MPs about Tumour Treating Fields and NICE's position regarding NHS access.
Thanks to your action, we had a very informative meeting with Professor Jonathan Benger, Chief Medical Officer at NICE, on Tuesday 2nd September. He confirmed the NICE position that TTFields has recently been discussed at NICE's prioritisation board, but there has not been enough new evidence, or a reduction in cost, that would affect its recommendation.
We at Brain Tumour Research understand and respect the NICE methodology. However, we remain perplexed by the ability of other European countries to make this technology available. We were therefore pleased that Prof Benger agreed to look at the situation in Spain and other European countries to better understand the disparity between the UK and countries with similar healthcare systems. They will also continue to monitor ongoing trials investigating TTFields and will assess additional evidence when it becomes available.
Thank you all for your support with this. Together we will make that difference.
Hugh
Published on Friday 29ᵗʰ August 2025.
