Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the severity modifier criteria on access to drugs for cancer patients.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been monitoring the impact of the severity modifier since it was implemented in 2022. Data up to March 2025 shows that the proportion of positive cancer recommendations is higher (85%) than with the end-of-life modifier it replaced (75%) and the proportion of positive recommendations for advanced cancer treatments is also higher (81% compared to 69%).

Since January 2022, NICE has recommended all but one of the treatments for breast cancer that it has assessed, including treatments for advanced breast cancer (such as Truqap and Korserdu), which are now available to eligible National Health Service patients.

The severity modifier is therefore working as intended and there are currently no plans to adjust or change it in the near future. However, NICE has commissioned research on people’s attitudes to how the severity modifier should be applied that will inform future reviews of NICE’s methods.