Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what their rationale is for increasing the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) cost-effectiveness thresholds for assessing new medicines to £25–30,000 per quality-adjusted life year; and whether they plan to apply the same proportionate increases to the NICE cost-effectiveness thresholds for highly specialised technologies.

We have reached a landmark agreement with the United States of America that secures a preferential tariff rate of 0% for all pharmaceuticals exports to the US for at least three years, and preferential terms for the United Kingdom’s medical technology exports, meaning no additional new tariffs on medical technology. This means that, unlike anywhere else in the world, life sciences companies exporting medicines from the UK to the US will face no tariffs to do so, protecting jobs and investment in the UK.

The agreement will see the National Health Service invest approximately 25% more in innovative treatments which will be achieved through an increase to the standard cost-effectiveness threshold that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) uses and a change to the way in which NICE values health benefits to better reflect societal preferences.

There are currently no plans to increase the cost‑effectiveness threshold for the highly specialised technologies (HST) programme. The HST programme already operates at a much higher threshold than standard NICE technology appraisals, reflecting the challenges of bringing treatments for very rare conditions to market, and NICE has been able to recommend nearly all the treatments that have been evaluated through the HST programme for NHS use.