Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has instructed (a) officials of his Department and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to carry out a financial impact assessment of the cost and benefits of prescribing bisphosphonates for the treatment of cancer.

The independent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently updating its guideline on the diagnosis and management of early and locally advanced breast cancer and the use of adjuvant bisphosphonates has been identified as one of the key areas that will be covered in the update, which is scheduled for publication in July 2018.

The guideline has been scheduled to take into account the latest available evidence on the adjuvant use of bisphosphonates for the treatment of breast cancer.

As part of its guideline development process, NICE considers the available economic evidence and guideline recommendations are normally based on the balance between the estimated costs of the interventions or services and their expected benefits compared with an alternative.