Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to require NHS doctors, when prescribing a treatment off-label, to encourage patients to allow their data to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment; what plans they have to provide mechanisms whereby (1) consent and refusal may be easily recorded, and (2) relevant data may be made available for academic evaluation; and what plans they have to review such evaluations in order to reduce the percentage of off-label prescribing.

The Government has no plans to do so. However, the Department with NHS England and NHS Improvement, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, the National Institute of Health Research recently launched a repurposing medicines programme which aims to strengthen the evidence base, licensing, supply and cost effectiveness of medicines being used outside their original medical indication. The aim is to improve clinical outcomes and patient experience by taking action to enable more equitable access to those medicines prioritised for adoption into the programme.