These are:

• A consultation on a new and faster system for referring drugs to NICE for appraisal. Proposals will enable NICE to issue more timely guidance, giving patients faster access to drugs and treatments.
• An additional new appraisal committee – to ensure that NICE has the capacity it needs to appraise new drugs and treatments as promptly as possible.
• Increased investment in ‘horizon scanning’ to ensure new drugs are identified early on for appraisal, and,
• A guidance document for the NHS detailing good practice on how decisions on new drugs should be made by PCTs where there is no existing NICE guidance.

Lord Darzi said: ‘We are delighted to be working in partnership with NICE to ensure that new drugs and treatments are assessed sooner and more quickly in future, leading to improved and higher quality care for patients.’

Mark Simmonds, Conservative shadow health minister, said: ‘Another lengthy consultation process is simply not good enough. I am also worried that the proposals do little to speed up the take up of new drugs once they have been approved by NICE.

‘If Labour took up our policies to move the emphasis in the NHS from hitting government-imposed targets to focusing on health outcomes for patients it would increase greatly the number of people able to get access to new drugs.’

neil.durham@haymarket.com

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