Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has held recent discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on changing the discount rate; what his planned timetable is for this work; and whether it will be subject to formal public consultation.

There have been no recent discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) concluded a review of its methods and processes for health technology evaluation, including consideration of the discount rate and published its updated manual on 31 January 2022. NICE’s final consultation on proposed changes closed on 13 October 2021. NICE concluded that while there was some evidence to support a change to the reference case discount rate, it was appropriate to maintain the existing rate of 3.5% due to policy and fiscal implications and interdependencies beyond the scope of the review.