Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if NHS England will consider the potential merits of developing a new assessment process to evaluate orphan medicines for use in the NHS.

NHS England is waiting for the outcome of the current joint National Institute for Health and Care Excellence/NHS England consultation on proposed changes to arrangements for evaluating and funding drugs and other health technologies which are appraised through NICE’s technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies programmes.

The consultation is due to close on 13 January. Once the responses to the consultation have been reviewed, NHS England and NICE will consider whether any changes to the way orphan drugs are evaluated should be made.