NHS: NICE-appraised Medicines

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report of the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care, Use of NICE appraised medicines in the NHS in England-2012, experimental statistics, which showed extensive variation in patients’ access to new innovative medicines.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I refer noble Lords to my health interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, patients have a right to drugs and treatments that have been approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence that their doctor decides are appropriate for them. There can be many reasons for variation in use but we are determined to tackle unjustified variation where it exists.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for that response. Does he agree that one of the conclusions of the report is that there can be a tenfold variation in the take-up of innovative new medicines that have been approved under the NICE technology appraisal programme? Given that it is a legal requirement for clinical commissioning groups to fund those treatments, as I understand it, what sanctions can be taken against commissioning groups which do not fund those treatments? What can patients do in each area if they are refused such treatments? Is there a process of appeal that they can take their concerns to?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is a process of appeal. Patients can go to their clinical commissioning group or, indeed, to NHS England and ask for the matter to be specially looked at. However, it is important to understand what these figures are and what they are not. They are not intended to be, and do not claim to be, a statement of whether certain drugs are being underprescribed or overprescribed in a particular area. One has to drill down into the reasons. In fact, when one does that, for most of the groups of medicines where it was possible to compare observed and predicted use, the report shows that use has increased over time, and we are introducing additional tools to allow the NHS to get to the heart of the reasons for variations in local areas.