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 NICE’s Topic Selection Oversight Panel considers (a) clinical and (b) patient expert insights in its decision-making processes.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for the decision-making processes that it operates.

NICE’s Topic Selection Oversight Panel (TSOP) is responsible for the selection of topics for guidance development in the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation. The group considers the available evidence as well as clinical and patient insights to apply the medicines and highly specialised technologies criteria and decide whether to route medicines to the technology appraisal or highly specialised technologies programmes, or to deselect the topic. The TSOP’s membership includes lay members to provide the perspective of patients, people who use services and carers in the selection and routing of topics. It also includes members with responsibility for providing clinical insights and expertise.