Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of prioritising the appraisal by the National Institute for Health and Social Care of medicines for (a) clinically extremely vulnerable and (b) other priority groups.

All medicines appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) address important areas of health. NICE works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to ensure that licensing procedures and health technology assessments are streamlined and aims wherever possible to publish its recommendations on all new medicines very close to licensing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, NICE adapted its priorities to support the health and care system at a time of unprecedented pressure. This involved pausing the publication of topics that were not COVID-19 related or regarded as therapeutically critical.