Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal by the Medical Technologies Directorate to adopt evidence assessment processes used in relation to pharmaceutical products to assess innovative medical devices.

The Medical Technologies Directorate is working with public sector and industry stakeholders to consider various approaches to the product pathway for medical devices as part of a wider strategy. Plans to publish this strategy will be brought forward in due course.

Clinicians have the professional autonomy to choose an appropriate treatment based on the best available evidence. Mandatory adoption of certain devices could interfere with this clinical judgement and undermine the patient-doctor relationship. We will consider the access and appropriate adoption of innovative devices with other organisations such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Accelerated Access Collaborative.

Many aspects of the medicines model are not transferable given the differences between the two sectors in terms of product range, scope, diversity of suppliers and level of Government involvement in the market. A review of proposals which could drive consistency in evaluation of innovation will be taken forward as part of the strategy development work.