Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS trusts are prepared to deliver new therapies once they enter routine commissioning.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service on whether all new medicines, and significant licence extensions for existing medicines, should be routinely funded by the NHS in England based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is required to fund medicines recommended by NICE, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.

NHS England takes the necessary action to ensure that the treatments recommended by NICE are available for the services for which it has commissioning responsibility. It has a dedicated team to support the adoption of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) that are recommended by NICE. NHS England works with a variety of internal and external stakeholders to ensure timely patient access to ATMPs that are on NICE’s technology appraisal and highly specialised technology workplan.

The collaboration platform for the health and care sector in England, Futures NHS, includes information to support NHS organisations in England to plan, implement, and budget for new medicines, once they are recommended by NICE.