Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential merits of establishing a structured, funded commissioning pathway for treatments that have not yet been made available through the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group process, where unmet need has been identified by NHS Clinical Reference Groups.

No assessment has been made of establishing a separate, funded pathway for treatments that have not been prioritised for funding.

The National Health Service has established processes in place to assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of new treatments through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Where NICE is unable to assess a treatment, for example because a medicine is being used outside its licensed indication, the treatment may be considered through NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) annual prioritisation process.

CPAG makes recommendations on the relative priority of treatments, and funding decisions are taken against a defined budget which is set annually based on affordability.

The CPAG process aims to ensure that investment targets the treatments that are offering the greatest clinical benefit and value for money for patients and taxpayers. Treatments that are not prioritised for funding remain eligible for reconsideration in subsequent CPAG prioritisation rounds in line with the published process.

Treatments that have not been assessed by NICE or prioritised through successive CPAG rounds are unlikely to represent the highest relative benefit or value for money when compared with competing priorities for investment.