What is the Individual Funding Request (IFR) panel?
NHS Kent and Medway wants to make sure that local residents enjoy the best possible health. We recognise the needs of individual patients, but sometimes difficult choices have to be made for funding healthcare.
As a result, there are some treatments we do not normally fund. NHS Kent and Medway have a panel of members who have received training to make decisions about these treatments which are considered through the Individual Funding Request (IFR) process.
The IFR Panel can approve requests for funding for treatment for an individual patient where the following four criteria are met:
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Either the patient has a medical condition that is rare and as such the PCT
does not have services to cover this - a condition is considered rare if only one patient in the Eastern and Coastal Kent is likely to be referred in one year.
--- or ---
The patient has a condition for which the PCT has a policy and can demonstrate “exceptional clinical circumstances”. Exceptional means in this case that the patient’s clinical circumstances are different to those experienced by at least 95 percent of patients with the same medical condition, at the same stage.
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There is sufficient evidence to show that the proposed treatment is likely to be clinically effective.
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Applying the approach that takes to the assessment of costs for other treatments outside this policy, the cost to the PCT of providing funding to support the requested treatment is justified in the light of the benefits likely to be delivered for the named patient by the requested treatment.
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The request is not a request for service development.
The IFR panel works hard to make these difficult decisions in a way that is fair, consistent and treats everyone the same.
Funding requests for drugs
Useful documents
