Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether a clinical and financial risk analysis has been carried out on the proposal to restrict patient access to blue-light filtering intraocular lenses in the NICE draft clinical guideline on cataracts in adults: management.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has advised that it made recommendations for blue-light filtering lenses in the draft cataract guideline based on a systematic review of both the clinical and economic evidence for their use. This considered the potential benefits, harms and costs of the technology.

All of the recommendations in the draft guideline, including the recommendation on blue-light filtering lenses, are not yet final and are subject to post-consultation changes based on the feedback received from stakeholders during the consultation. NICE expects to publish final guidance on 24 October 2017. Full details of the consideration of the intraocular lenses can be found in chapter 8 of the full draft guideline available at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/gid-cgwave0741/documents/draft-guideline