Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria the NHS England Clinical Priorities Advisory Group uses in making commissioning decisions.

The criteria against which NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group considers proposed investments for specialised services are as follows:

- There must be adequate and clinically reliable evidence to demonstrate clinical effectiveness;

- There must be measurable benefits to patients;

- The intervention should offer equal or greater benefit than other forms of care routinely commissioned by the NHS;

- While considering the benefit of stimulating innovation, NHS England will not confer higher priority to a treatment or intervention solely on the basis that it is the only one available;

- NHS England may agree to fund interventions for rare conditions where there is limited published evidence on clinical effectiveness;

- The intervention must be available to all patients within the same patient group (other than for clinical contra-indication);

- The intervention should be likely to reduce health inequalities and will have regard to any relevant broader equality issues;

- The intervention should benefit the wider health and care system;

- The intervention should advance parity between mental and physical health; and

- The intervention should demonstrate value for money.

The criteria are set out in NHS England’s response to a public consultation, Investing in Specialised Services, of June 2015, a copy of which is attached.