Individual Funding Request via your GP

What is an individual funding request?An individual funding request can be made by the clinician treating you if they believe that because your clinical circumstances are exceptional, you may receive benefit from a treatment or service that isn’t routinely offered by the NHS.

Why are some treatments not routinely offered by the NHS?There may be some cases where a treatment is not available because there is limited evidence for how well it works or because it is very high cost and doesn’t offer good value for money for taxpayers and the NHS.

When can an individual funding request be made?An individual funding request can be made for a treatment that is not routinely offered by the NHS:when your clinician believes that your clinical circumstances are clearly different to other patients with the same condition, andwhen there is a reason why you would respond differently to other patients - and therefore gain more clinical benefit from the treatment.

"Patients understand their symptoms better than anyone and may be very well informed on their condition. If you’re aware of a treatment that you think may help you, discuss it with your clinician who can advise you if an individual funding request would be appropriate. If there are likely to be other patients with similar clinical circumstances who might benefit from the treatment in a similar way, your clinician can request that NHS England consider introducing it as a routine treatment. If it is approved, the clinician can then make the treatment available to you."

Who can make an individual funding request?The individual funding request is made by a clinician. NHS England cannot accept individual funding requests directly from patients, although patients can work with their clinician to have input into the process if their clinician believes they are eligible.

Who considers the application? Your application will first go through a screening process

by NHS England to make sure all relevant information has been submitted and the application meets the criteria for an individual funding request.It will then be considered by an independent panel who have not been involved in your treatment. The panel is made up of doctors, nurses, public health experts, pharmacists, NHS England representatives and lay members and is led by a lay chair. The panel will consider the application in detail before making a decision, usually within a few weeks. All panel members regularly receive training to enable them to assess individual funding requests fairly and thoroughly.Treatments agreed through the IFR process must be funded from the same budget available for other established treatments. It’s because of this that every single case is considered extremely carefully before a decision is taken to fund a treatment for an individual that is not usually available on the NHS

How long will an application take? As long as all the required information is submitted, it usually takes 30 working days from receiving an application to a decision, but it can often be sooner. Urgent cases can be processed more quickly if needed.

ALL INFORMATION ON THIS ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND IN MORE DETAIL AT https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/individual-funding-requests-for-specialised-services-a-guide-