Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will review the adequacy of processes to expedite new preventative treatments for covid-19 in order to support people who are at higher risk of ill health through contracting that disease.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent, expert body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources. NICE is responsible for the processes it uses in developing its recommendations.

New medicines for COVID-19 that are referred to NICE will be evaluated through NICE’s technology appraisal process. NICE aims to publish guidance within 90 days of marketing authorisation being issued by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency wherever possible and works with stakeholders to align its appraisal timelines with the regulatory process.

NICE is developing a new review process to update its recommendations on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 treatments so they can be made available more quickly to patients if they show promise against new variants and are found to be cost-effective. NICE recently ran a four week public consultation on proposals for the new rapid update process, which will apply to recommendations NICE has already published on COVID-19 treatments.