Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NICE on the impact of their severity modifier on people with secondary breast cancer in (a) Yeovil constituency and (b) the UK.

The Department has regular discussions with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including on the impact of the severity modifier on people with secondary breast cancer.

NICE carried out a review of the implementation of the severity modifier in September 2024 and found that it is operating as intended. This showed that the proportion of positive cancer recommendations is higher, at 84.8%, than with the end-of-life modifier it replaced, at 75%, and the proportion of positive recommendations for advanced cancer treatments is also higher, at 81.1% compared to 69%.

Since the introduction of the severity modifier, NICE has recommended all but one of the treatments for breast cancer that it has assessed. These treatments are now available to eligible National Health Service patients.

NICE has commissioned research to gather further evidence on societal preferences that will inform future method reviews.