New role for NICE should help PCTs with funding decisions

As reported in this month's News, NICE has issued its final guidance to English and Welsh health service trusts on the use of Herceptin for the treatment of early stage breast cancer in women with HER2 positive disease.

In the August issue of Guidelines in Practice, Dr Gerard Panting highlighted the issues surrounding the availability of expensive new therapies, such as Herceptin.1

He explained that many other costly therapies will be introduced over the next few years, leaving PCTs and their GPs with the unenviable task of making difficult trade-offs in priorities.

One way to potentially allow the NHS to reinvest millions of pounds on drugs and approaches that improve patient care was highlighted by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, earlier this year. He reported that unnecessary procedures, such as tonsillectomies and hysterectomies, were being regularly performed despite other treatment options being available. He called for disinvestment from established interventions that are of no proven value.2

The DH announced this month that NICE has undertaken the role to help the NHS identify and stop ineffective interventions, with the overall aim of making health services more equitable across the country.3

With new medicines and treatments continually emerging, and trusts having to make difficult decisions about how to invest funding, this new stream of guidance from NICE could help the NHS free up millions of pounds by stopping the use of obsolete or ineffective treatments.

Julia Morris, Editor
julia.morris@mgp.ltd.uk

References

1. Panting G. PCTs should fund expensive medication where appropriate. Guidelines in Practice, August 2006; 9 (8): 15–16.
2. The Chief Medical Officer's Annual Report 2005. www.dh.gov.uk/cmo
3. http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=225024&NewsAreaID=2

Guidelines in Practice, September 2006, Volume 9(9) © 2006 MGP Ltd further information | subscribe