Expansion of NICE Appraisal Process to High-Impact HealthTech
Ahead of the NHS 10-Year Health Plan publication, news has been trailed regarding the expansion of policies for equal treatment of medicines and health technologies.
Under this approach, devices, diagnostics and digital tools recommended by NICE will, for the first time, be eligible for national funding in the same way as medicines. The new Rules-Based Pathway will extend NICE’s technology appraisal process, which currently applies to medicines, to include selected high-impact HealthTech that meet the NHS’s most urgent needs.
As members will recall, the Department of Health and Social Care consulted on proposals for this Pathway last year. At that time, ABHI welcomed the ambition to accelerate access to innovation but raised concerns about the practical implications of implementing such a Pathway and its impact, bearing in mind it will likely benefit a small number of technologies. Though the intention to create parity is positive, these underlying issues remain critical to the success of the policy and its ability to attract investment into the UK, recognising there may need to be a stepped approach. We await further detail on how the Pathway will be implemented and its scope.
Earlier today, ABHI participated in the inaugural meeting of the NICE HealthTech Industry Council. This new forum has been established to advance HealthTech assessment approaches and improve alignment between NICE programmes and the needs of patients and innovators. The discussions were very positive and focused on how NICE and industry can work collaboratively to understand system needs at a granular level, innovations in development that will have a transformative impact on the NHS, the best route for those to be fed into NICE and when is the right time for NICE to develop guidance for any given technology. Future topics for discussion include evidence requirements and generation, and the implementation of the proposed Rules Based Pathway. We see this as an important opportunity to help shape the practical detail needed to make these changes more effective.
We will keep members updated as further information becomes available, and if you have any questions or wish to share your views, please do write to me.
