Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence plans to launch a public consultation to take forward the commitment in the 2024 Rare Disease Action Plan for England to review the criteria for its Highly Specialised Technologies programme for very rare diseases.

Department officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including in relation to the criteria for routing topics to the highly specialised technologies programme. The aim of any change to the criteria would be to clarify the type of medicine that would be eligible for the programme, in line with the vision set out in the NICE’s published topic selection manual. The NICE will consult publicly on any proposed changes to the criteria.