Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has had discussions with (a) HM Treasury and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on the adoption of a discount rate of 1.5% when assessing the future (a) benefits and (b) costs of medicines to align with the guidance set out in the Green Book.

The Department of Health and Social Care has had a number of discussions with HM Treasury and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) about the discount rate used in the evaluation of medicines, including as part of the 2022 review of NICE’s methods and processes for health technology evaluation.

Through the methods review, NICE concluded that it was appropriate to maintain the reference case discount rate of 3.5% and has retained the flexibility in its methods for its committees to apply a lower non-reference case discount rate of 1.5% per year for both cost and health effects in exceptional circumstances. The decision on whether a non-reference case discount rate should be applied is taken by NICE’s Appraisal Committees.