Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to hold NHS bodies accountable to the recommendations of the Accelerated Access Review.

George Freeman

The Accelerated Access Review, which was set up to look at speeding up access to innovative drugs including those for rare diseases, devices and diagnostics for National Health Service patients, has been making strong progress since it was first announced in November 2014.

The review is independently chaired by Sir Hugh Taylor and has been engaging stakeholders extensively since the summer to gather evidence on the big questions the review is considering, and has developed a number of emerging solutions.

Sir Hugh published his interim report of the review on 27 October 2015. The report is high-level, direction-setting and grounded in evidence gathered through the review’s stakeholder engagement to date. Included in the report were proposals for a National Innovation Partnership of key bodies in the innovation pathway who would be party to a Concordat committing them to the ambitions set out in the review. The review has used a second phase of engagement to work closely with industry stakeholders, Government, the NHS and arm’s length bodies on these and other proposals set out in the interim report.

In April 2016 the review will conclude with Sir Hugh making his final recommendations to Government. The Department will review these recommendations and consider how best to respond.