Vitiligo: Medical Treatments

(asked on 21st February 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure patients with vitiligo have access to effective treatments in the context of NICE's decision not to recommend Ruxolitinib for NHS use.


Answered by
Karin Smyth Portrait
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 26th February 2025

The Government wants National Health Service patients to be able to benefit from access to clinically and cost-effective new treatments, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the NHS on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE is currently developing guidance for the NHS on whether ruxolitinib should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of its costs and benefits.

The NICE was unfortunately unable to recommend ruxolitinib as a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources in its final draft guidance published on 18 July. The NICE received four appeals against its draft recommendation which were heard by an independent panel on 11 October 2024. The appeal panel remitted the evaluation of ruxolitinib to the appraisal committee with the instruction to take all reasonable steps to address the issues raised in the upheld appeal points. The committee will consider the upheld appeal points at a future meeting scheduled for 14 May 2025.

It is right that the NICE makes its decisions at arm’s length of the Government and in line with its carefully developed methods and processes. As such, it would not be appropriate for me to intervene in the NICE’s decision-making.

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