Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what factors its Department (a) considers and (b) advocates as a priority on the cross-agency topic prioritisation group; and if he will make a statement.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) cross-agency topic prioritisation group includes senior executives from NICE, NHS England, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the Department. When deciding which topics to prioritise for guideline development, and in what order, the group considers system priorities and clinical need, including factors such as the health and care burden, the evidence base and variation in practice. To build on the work of this group, NICE’s Chief Medical Officer is establishing a new prioritisation board. NICE will make further information about the factors this board will consider in its decisions available on its website in due course.