Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to NHS England's consultation on developing a method to assist investment decisions in specialised services, published in April 2016, what budget has been allocated to support new investments in specialised services in 2016-17.

NHS England funds a range of new treatments and interventions for specialised services each year.

NHS England’s specialised commissioning budget received an additional £1 billion in 2016-17 compared to 2015-16 to cover a range of new investments including the impact of demographic changes and new treatments and interventions.

Most of this additional £1 billion is covering the costs of demographic changes.

With regard to new treatments and interventions, many of these were considered as ‘In Year Service Developments’ – policies which are cost-saving or cost neutral. This includes 12 new treatments and services that were confirmed in July 2016. Further information on these decisions is available at the following address:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/07/spec-services-investment/

In addition NHS England funds the cost of drug indications approved through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal and highly specialised technology appraisals process. For new drug indications that have commenced since April 2016, NHS England has released approximately £45 million to date.

Finally, policies which require new investment and that are not being considered by NICE are considered as part of the Annual Prioritisation process. NHS England has set aside £25 million to fund new treatments approved as part of this process for 2016-17.

This is in addition to £340 million budgeted for the new Cancer Drugs Fund.