Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make the decision-making process and criteria of the Specialised Services Devices Programme publicly available.

Whether a device category is excluded from tariffs and within the commissioning responsibility of NHS England is not determined by the Specialised Services Devices Programme (SSDP).

Any individual can nominate a device or device category to be excluded from tariffs. The description of this annual nomination process can be found on the NHS.UK website. Once this process is completed, feedback is shared with the person who has made the nomination. Inclusion on the High Cost Devices tab within the NHS Payment Scheme Workbook with the commissioning responsibility identified as NHS England indicates that a device category is included on SSDP.

In line with contractual terms included within the NHS Standard Contract, all devices eligible for reimbursement must be purchased through NHS Supply Chain. Therefore, all products reimbursed must also be eligible for purchase through this route. Individual devices agreed for reimbursement are assessed by SSDP, working with NHS Supply Chain and frontline clinicians using a process which has been widely communicated to industry suppliers and was extensively tested with the Association of British Healthtech Industry. This process considers a number of factors, including high quality clinical evidence, comparative costs, and affordability. This process supports suppliers to provide information and evidence in a consistent format for further evaluation. There is an intention to publish this process on the NHS England website.