To ask the Secretary of State for Health
(1) what his policy is on the use of biological therapies on adults diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and who have a disease activity score of above 3.2;
(2) what assessment he has made of the effect of the UK's eligibility criteria for access to biological therapies on the clinical outcomes achieved by patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
The Department has not issued guidance on the use of biological therapies for people with rheumatoid arthritis. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published a clinical guideline on the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and technology appraisal guidance on the use of certain individual biological therapies. NICE recommends the use of certain biological therapies for the treatment of patients with severe disease (disease activity score greater than 5.1 confirmed on at least two occasions, one month apart) if the patient has not responded to treatment with two separate combinations of conventional disease-modifying drugs.
Where NICE has issued positive appraisal guidance on a medicine, the national health service in England is legally obliged to provide funding for such treatments. Access to biological therapies in other countries of the United Kingdom is a matter for the devolved Administrations.
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