Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the severity modifier on recent NICE recommendations on blood cancer treatments.

Since the introduction of the severity modifier, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has approved 34 out of 35 blood cancer medicines it evaluated, reflecting an approval rate of 97%. Of these topics, a severity weighting was applied in nine topics.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) is a type of personalised immunotherapy in which a patient's own T-cells are harvested, genetically modified, and then reintroduced into the body so that they can detect and destroy cancer cells. England was the first country in Europe to deliver CAR-T. It has been available in selected specialist centres in the National Health Service in England since 2018.

As an innovative treatment option, NHS England has supported the development and subsequent refinement of a CAR-T specific tariff, working with NHS clinical and costing experts to ensure that CAR-T centres receive the funding they need to deliver these complex treatments safely and effectively. This work has informed the advice provided by the NHS to NICE.