Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 20 March 2019 to Question 231467 on Ophthalmic Services, whether he has made an assessment of the ability for clinicians to take into account patients’ wishes for concomitant treatment in relation to potential restrictions of the 2019/2020 NHS Tariff.

For the 2017/19 national tariff (which was set for two years), the prices for BZ91 were manually increased above the initially modelled level (based on 2014/15 reference costs) following feedback from the ophthalmology Expert Working Group (EWG). For 2019/20, the EWG recommended that the prices for BZ91 should not be increased and should remain as modelled (based on 2016/17 reference costs).

The EWG also confirmed that minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) and cataract activity are commonly done together and it would not usually be in the patient’s best interest to do them separately. The EWG advised that BZ91 was appropriate for combined MIGS and cataract activity – a MIGS procedure plus a cataract procedure should not receive over twice as much as either procedure alone.