Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2017 to Question 60527, what priority recommendation level was assigned by the NHS England Clinical Priority Advisory Group to each of the policy proposals (a) recommended for routine commissioning and (b) not recommended for routine commissioning.

In considering policies placed before it, NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group followed the published procedure, which was subject to recent public consultation. Policies with the greatest clinical benefit and lowest cost attracted the highest priority recommendation (level 1), while those with lowest clinical benefit and high cost attracted the lowest (level 5). Treatments in level 5 were considered not currently affordable and were not recommended for routine commissioning.

Information on the annual prioritisation process for specialised treatments was announced by NHS England on 4 December 2016. Further information on this announcement can be found here:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/

NHS England has published whether policies were above or below the threshold for commissioning; there are no plans to publish the individual prioritisation rankings.