Medical Treatments

(asked on 14th December 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that patient groups and patients are consulted on decisions made regarding new treatments as part of NHS England's prioritisation process for investing in specialised services.


This question was answered on 19th December 2016

NHS England involves patients, patient groups and the public at numerous stages of the process for developing clinical commissioning policies and service specifications that may be subject to a process of relative prioritisation.

Clinical policies and service specifications are developed by Clinical Reference Groups (CRGs), which are advisory groups and include patients and patient representatives in their membership. Draft clinical policies and service specifications undergo a process of testing with registered stakeholders before they are submitted for a full public consultation. The CRG will consider the outcome of stakeholder testing and public consultation before submitting the final proposed document to NHS England for the purpose of relative prioritisation.

Recommendations on the relative prioritisation of new investments in specialised services are made by the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group, which is independently chaired and which includes patient and public voice representatives in its membership. ​

NHS England held a public consultation on Developing a method to assist investment decisions in specialised commissioning between April and May 2016. NHS England’s response to the consultation can be found attached.

Reticulating Splines