Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to introduce Lecanemab through the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NHS in England is legally required to fund NICE-recommended medicines, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.

NICE is currently evaluating the disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s, lecanemab, but has been unable to recommend it in final draft guidance. NICE concluded that the relatively small benefits this medicine provides, balanced against the potential for serious side effects and the overall cost of providing it, means that it cannot currently be considered good value for the taxpayer. NICE has received one appeal against its draft recommendations for lecanemab and the appeal is due to be heard by NICE’s independent appeal panel in January 2026.

These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and based on an assessment of the available evidence on the relative costs and benefits of a treatment.