Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many commissioning policies were developed through the NHS England Specialised Commissioning Oversight Group in (a) 2014 and (b) 2015.
In 2014 NHS England published five clinical commissioning policies and policy statements for the routine of commissioning of new treatments, drugs or devices for specialised commissioning.
In 2015 (up to November 2015), 38 such clinical commissioning policies and policy statements were published.
Decisions for the 2015/16 commissioning round were due to be made in 2014 but this process was deferred to 2015 pending the outcome of public consultation on process.