Radiotherapy
(asked on 11th January 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason the Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) evidence summary is not appended to the SIRT interim clinical commissioning policy statement on the NHS England website; and if he will make a statement.
Selective Internal Radiation Therapy is not currently routinely funded by the NHS England. However, it is available via Individual Funding Requests.
NHS England has decided not to routinely fund SIRT because there is insufficient evidence of clinical effectiveness. Clinical commissioning policies are developed and determined in line with a published process that has been subject to consultation and developed with the input of public and patient representatives. The process includes a systematic review of the available clinical evidence and stakeholder engagement (including a period of formal public engagement on the draft policy proposition).
The procedure is available here:
The evidence review, conducted at the time of the initial publication of NHS England’s clinical commissioning policy which set this position out was omitted from publication in error. However, the evidence is now available on NHS England’s website alongside the policy itself.
In order to gather new evidence, NHS England is providing short-term funding to a number of patients as part of the Commissioning through Evaluation (CtE) programme. This is a formal evaluation programme within a small number of participating centres.
The recruitment phase of this scheme will be coming to an end shortly, after 3.5 years, enabling the analysis phase to begin. It is expected that over 500 patients will have been recruited to the programme by the end March 2017.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will act as an independent evaluator and therefore will lead on the production of the final report for the scheme. To ensure that they have a chance to input views, NHS England has agreed that both manufacturers known to have a direct business interest in SIRT will be given an opportunity to comment on this draft report. However, given potential conflicts of interest the CtE Steering Group which includes representation from both patients and national clinical experts will lead in supporting the drafting of the report.