The Department has made no such assessment. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service in England on the use of most new medicines through its technology appraisal programme and also operates a separate highly specialised technologies programme for the evaluation of very high cost drugs for the treatment of very small numbers of patients. NICE operates a topic selection process that includes consideration of individual topics against published criteria and engagement with stakeholders to determine whether topics are suitable for assessment by NICE and, if so, which programme is most appropriate.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4067", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Steve Brine"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Winchester"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Steve Brine"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2019-01-14", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2019-01-14T16:19:01.103Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "17"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Health and Social Care"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Health and Social Care"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2019-01-04", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Orphan Drugs"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Scottish Medicines Consortium\u2019s announcement on 8 October 2018 of the introduction of a revised definition for an ultra-orphan medicine, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of adopting the same definition.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/1383", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Mark Tami"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Alyn and Deeside"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Mark Tami"} ], "uin" : "205210"} , {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/964512", "AnsweringBody" : [{"_value" : "Department of Health and Social Care"} ], "answer" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/964512/answer", "answerText" : {"_value" : "
The level of funding for products undergoing review by NHS England will be determined during the 2019/20 planning process.<\/p>
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In 2016/17 and 2017/18, £25 million was set aside for discretionary investment in new specialised services. This was determined by NHS England, who considered it an appropriate level of investment in the context of NHS England\u2019s Specialised Commissioning functioning having to achieve overall efficiency savings of approximately 2.5% and 2.7% in 2016/17 and 2017/18 respectively in order to meet the financial pressures resulting from demographic growth and the legal requirement to fund all positive National Institute for Health and Care Excellence technology appraisals.<\/p>
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The split in the overall funding available between the November and May prioritisation rounds is not fixed but determined each year based on the number and estimated cost of treatments being considered by the independently chaired Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) in each round. Revealing the split risks revealing commercial in confidence information around pricing. Anything that is not prioritised in the November round has the opportunity to be considered at the May round therefore ensuring consideration against the full funding envelope for the financial year.<\/p>
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Where manufacturers have requested the cover sheets of the policy propositions, they have received the CPAG summary report as presented at the May 2018 meeting from NHS England.<\/p>
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The full scoring methodology that is used at all prioritisation meetings is published on the NHS England website. This can be found at the following link:<\/p>
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