Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure consistent implementation of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance by Integrated Care Boards across England.

National Health Service commissioners have a statutory responsibility to make funding available for a medicine or treatment recommended in a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal (TA) or highly specialised technology evaluation within the timeframe recommended in that guidance, usually within three months of the publication of NICE’s final guidance. The Innovation Scorecard reports on the use of medicines and medical technologies which have received a positive recommendation within the last five years by NICE; it can be used by local NHS organisations to monitor progress in implementing NICE TA recommendations. The Estimates Report provides a comparison of expected uptake to the actual volume of medicines used in the NHS in England.

Additionally, as part of commitments made in the 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth, NHS England agreed to the development of a local formulary national minimum dataset to increase visibility of local variation in the implementation of NICE guidance, identify where variation in local formularies may be creating barriers to access and to provide assurance to NHS England when a NICE recommended treatment has been listed on a local formulary.

Furthermore, the 10-Year Health Plan for England set out a commitment to move towards a Single National Formulary (SNF) for medicines within the next two years. Over time, an SNF is expected to replace local formulary processes and will be designed to help address inequity and variation in the use of approved medicines; helping to ensure every patient has equitable access to medicines, and that the same medicines are available to patients in an equitable way, in all parts of the country. Work is already underway to deliver the SNF through a phased approach. NHS England will work collaboratively with key stakeholders including NICE and industry throughout the implementation.