Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect on the public purse of the UK entering the top quartile of comparator countries for the speed of adoption and overall uptake of innovative treatments.

The proposal for the United Kingdom to move to the upper quartile of comparator countries for the uptake of innovative medicines by 2023 was a strategic goal of the Life Science Industrial Strategy report to the Government by Sir John Bell. The Government supports the ambition to maximise the appropriate use of uptake of innovative treatments in the National Health Service, and work is currently underway to develop appropriate metrics to support this. Current metrics on the use of medicines in the UK compared to other countries is published annually in the Office for Life Sciences, Life Science Competitiveness Indicators using a methodology devised by the Office for Health Economics and data of medicine use from IQVIA. The indicator compares the average per capita level of uptake compared to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.