The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7380 p734
17 December 2005

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Lack of NICE guidance cannot be sole reason for withholding treatment from NHS patients

It is not acceptable for NHS organisations to cite a lack of National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance as the sole reason for not providing a treatment, according to health minister Jane Kennedy.

Speaking at last week’s NICE conference in Birmingham, she said: “NICE does not exist to ‘kite mark’ all the drugs that are licensed for use in the UK. Therefore, the NHS will have to continue to make informed decisions about the use of these drugs.”

She explained that NICE was established to make recommendations on drugs where there were questions about the effectiveness of their use.

“For everything else, the NHS must make decisions with clinical and cost effectiveness first in mind,” she said.

Ms Kennedy added that the Department of Health in England would shortly be consulting on proposals to revise the topic selection process for NICE appraisals.