Chris Green – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Green on 2016-01-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to NHS’s consultation, Specialised services policy and specifications, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the procedure in use by NHS England to develop commissioning policies for specialised medicines.
George Freeman
NHS England is continuing to refine its standard operating procedure for developing commissioning policies for specialised medicines, taking into account professional and stakeholder feedback. For example, during 2015/16 NHS England introduced a more explicit requirement for external review of the available evidence of clinical and cost effectiveness, and a parallel clinical assurance process to ensure new policies appropriately reflect the available evidence. These evidence reviews are now made available alongside draft policy proposals as part of NHS England’s public consultation process.
NHS England has also commissioned an external review of its current policy development process and will formally consider lessons learned as it refines the process to be adopted in support of the 2016/17 work programme.
