Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for how long NHS England's public consultations about the principles and approach to decision making on drug licensing will last.

Translarna (ataluren) was given conditional approval for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy by the European Medicines Agency in August 2014.

NHS England is responsible for commissioning treatments for specialised services.

At its Board meeting on 17 December, NHS England decided that the consultation on prioritisation for specialised services should be 90 days. The length of the consultation period reflects the importance of these decisions and advice received from patient groups. Decisions on prioritisation, including the advice from the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group on the routine commissioning of Translarna (ataluren), will not be completed until the consultation has closed and the consultation responses have had due consideration. NHS England launched the consultation on 27 January 2015 and it is open for responses until 27 April 2015.

Any prioritisation which is urgent on clinical grounds will continue to be dealt with quickly through NHS England’s existing procedures. The route of individual funding requests remains the same.