Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O’Shaughnessy on 6 January (HL4375), whether, under the rolling regional tender programme, new medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C will (1) be included in those tender exercises, and (2) be available for reimbursement without appraisal or before appraisal by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

As in my Written Answer of 6 January, under the Departmental Commercial Medicines Unit’s rolling regional tender programme, all new hepatitis C medicines on the market at the time of tendering will be included in those tender exercises. All new hepatitis C treatments are currently subject to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review. NHS England does not currently have plans to reimburse access to these medicines ahead of NICE recommendations.