Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that NICE clarifies its guidance on the entitlement of patients of varying risk to Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for the wording of its recommendations. NICE published final interventional procedures guidance in July 2017 on the use of transcatheter aortic valve implantation for aortic stenosis that recommends the procedure, provided that standard arrangements are in place for clinical governance, consent and audit.

NICE interventional procedures guidance makes recommendations about the safety of procedures and how well they work and does not constitute a direction to National Health Service trusts to provide the interventions; it provides information on the circumstances in which to do so might be the right course of action for an individual patient. Decisions about whether to provide a treatment are taken locally.