Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the introduction of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s severity modifier on the availability of cancer medicines.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) carried out a review of the severity modifier in 2024 and found that it is operating as intended. Since its introduction, the severity modifier has resulted in a higher approval rate for cancer medicines than under the NICE’s previous methods, and has also allowed greater weight to be applied to non-cancer medicines.

The NICE has commissioned research to gather further evidence on societal preferences that will inform future methods’ reviews, but the severity modifier is unlikely to change in the near future, and any future changes would need to be consistent with the principle of cost neutrality.

In 2024, the NICE reported that where the new severity weighting had been used, there had been a higher proportion of positive recommendations, 84.4%, compared with the end-of-life modifier, 82.7%.

The proportion of positive cancer recommendations was also higher, at 80%, than with the end-of-life modifier, at 75%, and the proportion of positive recommendations for advanced cancer treatments was also higher, at 81% compared to 69%.

Further information on the severity modifier and the impact that it has had on the health and care system is available at the following link:

https://indepth.nice.org.uk/what-is-nices-severity-modifier/index.html