Greater public understanding of NICE needed
Andrew Dillon: NICE has explained its decisions reasonably well |
Wider discussion of the importance of assessing the cost-effectiveness of new medicines is needed to improve public understanding on this issue, according to Andrew
Dillon, chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
Answering
questions at a House of Commons Health Committee inquiry into
NICE last week, Mr Dillon said that he believed NICE had done reasonably
well at explaining its decisions, and the reasons behind them, to the
NHS.
However, he thought NICE had not been as successful in engaging
with the public, even though the institute put considerable effort into
explaining its decisions to the media.
Mr Dillon stressed that the institute always had to explain difficult
individual decisions at the same time as outlining why such decisions
had to be made. “I think there is a case for a wider discussion
to take place — that has to go beyond just NICE engaging with the
public — on why NICE exists in the first place and why it does
what it has to do,” he said.
Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of NICE, spoke about the institute’s
work examining the inappropriate use of treatments. He said such work
was more about when treatments should be used, and when they should not,
than about ruling that certain treatments should be withdrawn from practice.
“It’s not a question of there being useless medicines out
there. There aren’t,” he said. The British National Formulary
only lists a few medicines it does not recommend and these are treatments
doctors have not prescribed for many years, he said.
He argued that the
inappropriate use of medicines— either by prescribing them
in a way that is not cost-effective or prescribing them to patients who
will not benefit from them — was a much more
important area.
Mr Dillon said that NICE was currently developing guidelines on antibiotics
for children. “That particular topic is an area we’ve identified
where there is potential for issuing guidance which would guide practitioners
to optimal use and, therefore, where there is inappropriate prescribing,
reduce that.” |
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