Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to make the Cefaly headband for the treatment of migraines available on the NHS.

Jane Ellison

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published interventional procedure guidance (IP) on transcutaneous electrical stimulation of the supraorbital nerve (which the Cefaly headband provides) for treating and preventing migraine in May 2016. Current evidence on its use raises no major safety concerns, but the evidence on its efficacy is limited in quantity and quality. The NICE has therefore recommended that this procedure should only be used with special arrangements for clinical governance, consent and audit or research.

IP guidance does not consider how much the procedures would cost the National Health Service, or whether the NHS should allocate funding for them. These decisions are made at a local NHS level and usually on a case-by-case basis. This means that if the NICE has issued guidance recommending any given IP, the NHS is not obliged to provide it.