PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (10 May 2018)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 4 April 2018 to Question 134482 on Clinical Priorities Advisory Group, what budget forecasting assumptions were used to determine that £25m per year would be an appropriate level of investment for funding products through the relative prioritisation process.

Asked by:
Mark Tami (Labour)

The budget available for discretionary investment in new drugs and treatments not considered by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is determined annually and is set in the context of the overall affordability challenges facing the specialised commissioning portfolio. This assessment factors in pressures arising from demographic growth, the legal requirement to fund all NICE approved treatments and other delivery priorities set by the Government via the Mandate to NHS England.

In 2016/17 and again in 2017/18, £25 million of additional investment was set aside to support the specialised commissioning relative prioritisation process. This was assessed as being an appropriate and affordable level of spend in the context of NHS England’s Specialised Commissioning function having to achieve overall efficiency savings of approximately 2.7% in 2016/17 and 2.5% in 2017/18.

Detailed activity and associated costing forecasts are undertaken for all treatments that go through the relative prioritisation process and these take into account any anticipated changes in patient demand, or changes in the clinical or treatment pathway. The assumptions that underpin these forecasts are developed in collaboration with expert clinicians, public health specialists, patient and carer representatives, and industry partners and are tested through stakeholder engagement and formal public consultation before activity and cost estimates are completed for the prioritisation process.

In 2018/19 NHS England will be piloting a new assurance process to assess whether new treatments that are prioritised for funding are being equitably provided to patients across England and to test actual costs against estimates developed as part of the prioritisation process.

Answered by:
Steve Brine (Conservative)
17 May 2018