Medical Treatments

(asked on 27th October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s proposed severity modifier being introduced in an “opportunity cost neutral” package.


Answered by
Lord Kamall Portrait
Lord Kamall
This question was answered on 6th January 2022

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for determining the methods and processes used in the development of its recommendations. Therefore, the Department has made no such assessment.

NICE’s recent consultation, Review of methods for health technology evaluation programmes: proposals for change, issued as part of the ongoing review of its methods and processes for health technology assessments, states that the proposed severity modifier is intended to “to put more weight on treatments for people with severe diseases across all types of disease” reflecting evidence “that society values health gains from treatments for very severe diseases over other treatments”. The consultation also states that: “With the proposed approach, there are very few topics … which met the end-of-life criteria previously, but which would not receive an additional weighting with the severity modifier.” A copy of Review of methods for health technology evaluation programmes: proposals for change is attached.

NICE will consider the consultation responses in developing the final changes to its methods.

Reticulating Splines