Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the NHS on the potential merits of providing access to licensed gene therapies manufactured in the UK free of charge on the NHS.

We have had no such discussions with NHS England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new medicines, including gene therapies, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NHS is legally required to make funding available for NICE recommended treatments, usually within three months of the publication of final guidance. NICE has been able to recommend several gene therapies for use on the NHS, often subject to commercial agreements proposed through the NICE appraisal process, that are now available for the treatment of eligible patients.