Drugs and Medical Treatments: Finance
(asked on 18th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NICE positive recommendations in each year since 2023 were issued as optimised decisions; and what proportion of the eligible patient population was able to access those medicines on the NHS.
The following table shows the number of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommendations since 2023 that have been issued as optimised decisions:
Year | Number | Percentage of all publications excluding terminations |
2023/24 | 37 | 48% |
2024/25 | 33 | 43% |
2025/26 | 21 | 44% |
Source: NICE
Notes:
- the data for 2025/26 is for the year so far; and
- data includes all Cancer Drugs Fund and Innovative Medicines Fund recommendations.
The Government does not hold data on the proportion of the eligible patient population able to access those medicines on the National Health Service. Some data may be available via the innovation scorecard and estimates report, avaiable at the following link:
This is a publication which reports on the use of medicines and medicine groupings in the NHS in England which have been positively appraised by NICE, including some NICE optimised decisions.