Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had, or plan to have, with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) regarding the types of products or disease areas it plans to focus on in piloting new approaches to assessing their impact on health inequalities in the population.

The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has advised that its revised Equalities and Health Inequalities Assessment (EHIA) was developed and piloted in the Centre for Guidelines. Pilot topics include type two diabetes, weight management, breast cancer and atopic dermatitis in children aged under 12 years old.

Once fully implemented, it is expected that this approach to consideration of health inequalities will be expanded across NICE guidance topics. Operational improvements to expand the EHIA to technology appraisals are in development, NICE does not currently expect to restrict this approach to specific topics.