The trends on obesity are shocking. UK data on the prevalence of obesity in adults and children are provided by the National Obesity Observatory, which also shows the social gradient in obesity. NICE’s guideline on obesity emphasised prevention, but recommended medical and surgical treatment. Bariatric surgery was an option for those with a body mass […]
A recent breakfast meeting at the Kings Fund discussed the issue of an NHS top-up policy in relation to multifocal lenses in cataract surgery. My contribution from the commissioner perspective involved six points: i) the lenses were dear, adding several hundred pounds to the around £800 NHS cost of a cataract procedure, ii) that they were highly […]
A useful update was provided at a meeting this week sponsored by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and Patients Involved in NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). As the proceedings are to be written up and published, I focus here on the key points that emerged for me. […]
The “value based pricing” consultation paper” makes the following relevant references to the future of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). […]
The reports that NICE is to be stripped of its powers to recommend against NHS use of drugs prompts questions about the Coalition Government’s health plans. Some indication of what these might be can be gleaned from the current “Consultation on the cancer drugs fund” and its linked impact assessment. By having to frame the […]
The provisional guidance from NICE on drugs for Alzheimers’ disease – donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine, and memantine – marks a dramatic shift from restricting access to those with moderate disease to recommending these drugs as options for all patients with the disease. What has changed? No new compelling evidence has emerged. For each of the drugs […]
The coalition programme for government states: “We will create a cancer drugs fund to enable patients to access the cancer drugs their doctors think will help them, paid for using money saved by the NHS through our pledge to stop the rise in national insurance contributions from April 2011,” and “We will reform NICE and […]
Recent reports that NICE was to be bypassed by drugs which were “innovative,” with funding from a new separate budget, sent me in search of the source report – the Life Sciences Blueprint, a statement from the Office of Life Sciences . […]
The report of this judgment made me laugh out loud several times. Mr Justice Holman twice describes proceedings as “bizarre”. A key confidentiality agreement with Dr Kanis could not be found. “Perceived conflicts of interest” led the removal of Dr Kanis from NICE’s Guideline Development Group. Dr Kanis went on to make a statement expressly […]
One approach to setting NICE’s cost per QALY threshold might be to survey the public. In 2003 NICE and the Department of Health did just that, with a study “assessing the feasibility of estimating the value that the UK population might attach to a QALY.” […]