Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons NHS England published the priority levels for commissioning policies considered through its annual prioritisation process in July 2016 but did not publish priority levels for the treatments re-reviewed in December 2016.

In considering policies placed before it, NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group followed their published procedure, which was subject to recent public consultation. Proposals with the greatest clinical benefit and lowest cost attracted the highest priority recommendation (level 1), while those with lowest clinical benefit and high cost attracted the lowest (level 5). Treatments in level five were considered not currently affordable and were not recommended for routine commissioning.

When re-reviewing the treatments, NHS England announced which treatments were considered affordable, and not affordable, in line with the July prioritisation.