Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the proposed update to the 2023 Statutory Scheme to control the cost of branded health services medicines, what analysis and evidence the Department of Health and Social Care considered when it proposed to keep growth in the cost of branded medicines in real-terms decline, at 2 per cent a year.

2% allowed growth per annum represents an 80% rise in allowed growth compared to the 1.1% per annum which applied in the statutory scheme from 2019 to 2023. The proposal is consistent with the approach that underpinned the current statutory scheme’s 1.1% allowed growth, i.e., it equals the average allowed growth of the preceding voluntary scheme.

The proposed allowed growth rate considered multiple factors including the overall fiscal path. Furthermore, consideration of the pipeline of upcoming new treatments featured within our forecast growth in spend on new treatments and, ultimately, continued growth forecast in medicine sales.

Controlling growth at this level is considered to allow for a viable overall envelope for the statutory scheme more favourable for industry compared to the existing statutory scheme arrangements, whilst continuing to ensure that spend on branded medicines is affordable to the National Health Service.