The Committee for Health & Social Care has published its proposals to implement National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) drugs and treatments with technological appraisals (TAs).
This follows a review undertaken by Solutions for Public Health, which is an NHS public health consultancy. This was carried out in accordance with a resolution of the States arising from the amended Roffey Requête debated by the States of Deliberation in December 2018 (P2018/91).
The Committee has produced a summary of its proposals, which is available in the downloads section on this page.
The review has resulted in the production of two reports by Solutions for Public Health which are also available in the downloads section on this page.
The first report entitled "The Review of Drugs and Treatments: Options Appraisal" sets out the current position, various options in relation to the adoption of NICE TAs, together with the strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as an analysis of the views of medical professionals, elected representatives and the public following workshops undertaken earlier in the year.
The second report entitled "Additional Costs for the Implementation of NICE TAs" is a detailed analysis of the expected implementation and ongoing running costs associated with the introduction of new drugs and treatments.
HSC has considered the findings of the review at length and discussed its proposals with SPH, the Policy & Resources Committee and the Committee for Employment & Social Security. A Policy Letter (to be published late summer 2019) will offer more detail about the Committee's recommendations for change. This will include an analysis of the associated additional costs of implementing changes to current policy using an incremental approach, as set out in the Committee's report.
The current policy has, to a large extent, been in existence for the last 17 years and has been effective in controlling the rate of increase in health costs over a period of considerable budgetary restraint. However, this approach has created disparity between the drugs available to patients in England and those available to patients in the Bailiwick. HSC believes that the gap is now too large to be acceptable and a change of policy is necessary if this is not to worsen.
Further details about the current policy is available using the useful page links below.
