As someone who has worked alongside the National Health Service for many years, as well as witnessing the first-class care that my mother has received for her long-term, physical disabilities, I know how important healthcare is. Further to this, my brother and his wife are both doctors, and I know how hard they work in their profession.
I understand your concerns and I agree that it is of utmost importance to ensure that patients have access to the latest and best drugs as part of their care and treatment.
I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that off-label drugs can already be prescribed where there is robust evidence to support their use.
I am informed that in February, officials held an event for interested parties called 'Translating evidence into practice' which was prompted by a previous Bill on this topic. Attendees discussed what action, short of legislation, could be taken to ensure that robust evidence about new uses for existing drugs is produced, disseminated and then used to inform clinical decision making about these medicines.
You may be interested to learn that the Government has recently established the Accelerated Access Review which aims to develop ways to speed up access to innovative drugs, devices and diagnostics for NHS patients in a cost-effective way.
Please feel free to feed in your comments on the various lines of enquiry here https://engage.dh.gov.uk/acceleratedaccess/.