Scheme launched intended to improve drug access

Health Minister Lord Darzi is “delighted” to be working in partnership with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to speed up access to new drugs for NHS patients, he has stated.

Four proposed changes were announced today to ensure people are able to receive life-saving and cost-effective treatments faster.

Actions to achieve this include the addition of an extra appraisal committee to ensure NICE has the capacity needed to appraise new medications as promptly as possible.

Lord Darzi, who announced the programme today, explained it will “ensure that local decisions are robust and transparent, leading to more consistency in those exceptional cases where there is no existing NICE guidance”.

Overall, it will hopefully lead to improved and higher quality care for patients, he concluded.

Last month, NICE published new guidelines intended to assist thousands of people with rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that affects around 400,000 men and women of all ages in the UK.

It outlines the treatments and therapies that are available to sufferers of the illness and when is a suitable time to consider surgery.