Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to update impact assessments for Part IX Drug Tariff reform in the context of methodological changes following the introduction of interchangeable size bandings.

The Impact Assessment was shared at the consultation stage which took place between October 2023 and January 2024. It was subsequently updated to reflect the industry feedback received throughout the process, with the final version being released in August 2024.

Further detail has since been provided on the assessment of wound care in line with the existing principles that products will be grouped into clinically comparable clusters.

Therefore, when NHS Prescription Services apply these principles to wound care dressings, it is expected that dressings will be grouped into different sizes, reflecting the fact that different sized dressings meet different clinical needs.

The programme is now in the implementation stage, and the impacts will be reviewed through the agreed evaluation process for Wave 1, in collaboration with industry.