Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme providing effective and innovative medicines for patients.

At the start of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS), a forecast of National Health Service spend on new medicines (those launched after 31 December 2013) as a percentage of PPRS spend was agreed with industry for the subsequent years of the scheme. The latest estimate of new medicines as a percentage of measured PPRS spend for 2017 is 9%, which is greater than the agreed forecast for 2017 of just over 5%, suggesting that new medicines make up notably more of PPRS spend than was forecast. This estimate excludes new medicines supplied by members of the statutory branded medicines price regulation scheme.

Use of innovative medicines in England is reported through the innovation scorecard. The most recent publication was in October 2017 and is available at:

https://digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB30106

Since 2014, the medicines in the scorecard have changed as new medicines have become available. The scorecard shows that for the 12 months from April 2016 to March 2017, compared to the previous 12 months where comparable data is available, 73% of innovative medicines covered by the scorecard were prescribed more.