Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what data (a) Clinical Reference Groups and (b) the Prescribed Specialised Services Advisory Group are required to collect and consider in the course of making their decisions.

When making decisions the Prescribed Specialised Services Advisory Group (PSSAG) must consider four factors:

- the number of individuals who require the provision of the service or facility;

- the cost of providing the service or facility;

- the number of persons able to provide the service or facility; and

- the financial implications for clinical commissioning groups if they were required to arrange for the provision of the service or facility.

PSSAG therefore requests that any proposals put forward for its consideration include data which supports informed decision making in these areas. If the group does not feel that there is sufficient data to reach a decision, it may request further information to enable it to do so at a later date. More information can be found at the following address:

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/prescribed-specialised-services-advisory-group-pssag

Clinical Reference Groups (CRGs) are not decision making groups.

However CRGs collate a large amount of data to consider when providing their clinical advice and utilise when making recommendations relating to commissioning.

From a clinical commissioning policy perspective, CRGs gather and analyse data and intelligence that is relevant to the treatment proposal they are considering, such as Individual Funding Request activity, a summary of clinical evidence and related trial statistics. They would consider prevalence and incidence data sources, search clinical databases and registries for relevant data and collect data on clinical outcomes and clinical quality aspects. The CRG would also take account of patient experience information and relevant financial information.

Similar data sources would also be used to support the development of service specifications and to inform the work on service reviews.