Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group of NHS England has made on assessing the availability of MR Guided Focused Ultrasound for NHS patients; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England is in the process of developing a national clinical commissioning policy for MR-guided focused ultrasound for essential tremor. The policy will determine whether the intervention will or will not be routinely commissioned and contain criteria to guide clinical decision making about the patients able to benefit.

A draft policy was returned to the Specialised Commissioning Clinical Panel in November 2019 and is now progressing to stakeholder engagement and public consultation. After public consultation is completed, the policy proposal will be considered by the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group. If a decision is taken to commission the intervention, funding will be required to implement the policy. This will be considered alongside other proposals for new treatments for funding through a relative prioritisation process which takes place twice a year, and is next due to take place in May 2020.