Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that patients can access the most effective innovations for migraine.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended several new medicines as options for the treatment of migraine. The National Health Service in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended in a NICE appraisal, usually within three months of final guidance.

The NHS England Neurology Transformation Programme has developed a neurology toolkit for integrated care boards (ICBs) which includes guidance on optimising system-wide headache pathways, including for migraine. This guidance will provide support to ICBs in reducing regional variation in access to NICE-recommended Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide and gepant migraine treatments for patients, including options for improving community-based services that reduce outpatient waiting lists and improve timely access to diagnosis and treatment.