NICE: Changes we're making to health technology evaluation
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The voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access was
agreed by government and the Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) in December 2018. It commits NICE to
a review of its methods for technology appraisalsand highly
specialised technologies, including the process of guidance
production for highly specialised technologies. We are taking this
opportunity to extend this exercise to include the methods and
processes of the Medical...Request free
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The voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access was agreed by government and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) in December 2018. It commits NICE to a review of its methods for technology appraisalsand highly specialised technologies, including the process of guidance production for highly specialised technologies.
We are taking this opportunity to extend this exercise to include
the methods and processes of the Medical Technologies
Evaluation Programme and the Diagnostics Assessment
Programme as well, and align them where appropriate. Why are we making these changes? The purpose of our review is to optimise NICE's evaluation methods to support the ambition of the NHS to provide high quality care that offers good value to patients and to the NHS. The review is not starting with a blank sheet of paper. This is an incremental development of our existing world class approach to evaluating new health technologies. Changes to the healthcare system The healthcare system is changing. Products are becoming more complicated to evaluate due to innovations such as:
There's also demand for products to be made available more quickly, sometimes with a lower evidence base than was previously the case. This means there's more demand for the guidance and advice that we produce. Our stakeholders are asking us to get involved with commercial discussions, as well as supporting commercial decisions. This is increasing the complexity of our operations. We need to be faster and more efficient Feedback from our stakeholders tells us that we need to speed up the way we work and become more efficient. This is one of the many ways we'll improve how we do things, and respond to external changes. Improvements we hope to see We hope to:
In November 2019, we held a webinar to share how and why health technology evaluation is changing and what it means for patients. Meindert Boysen, director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation, hosted the webinar, joined by:
The webinar includes a presentation and panel discussion based on questions sent in by the audience. Who is involved? We've set up a steering group and working group with external membership to oversee the review. Steering group The steering group will have senior oversight of the methods and process review, while considering the changing national policy landscape and its impact. Members The steering group will use its collective knowledge of the health and care landscape to consider the changing national policy landscape and its impact. They'll also oversee the entire review and update.
Methods working group The methods working group will commission the development of topics by short-life task and finish groups. It will review and consider the proposals from these groups in detail, before making recommendations to the steering group on the methods. Members The methods working group will use their expertise to make operational decisions about the project. They'll also oversee the delivery of work, as instructed by the steering group.
Patient working group We've set up a patient working group so that we can:
The group will feed back their proposals for improved patient involvement. It has representatives from:
Timeline Please note, the below timeline has been amended in response to the ongoing pandemic, to enable stakeholders more time to respond to our consultations. |