Medical Treatments: Finance

Department of Health written question – answered at on 4 April 2017.

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Photo of Mark Tami Mark Tami Opposition Pairing Whip (Commons)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with NHS England on improving the way that decisions about the funding of treatments are communicated to patient groups and the public.

Photo of Mark Tami Mark Tami Opposition Pairing Whip (Commons)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ask NHS England to make the minutes of the (a) Clinical Priorities Advisory Group and (b) Specialised Services Commissioning Committee publicly available.

Photo of Mark Tami Mark Tami Opposition Pairing Whip (Commons)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he will take to improve the transparency of decisions made by (a) NHS England, (b) the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group and (c) the Specialised Services Commissioning Committee.

Photo of David Mowat David Mowat The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health

Patients and patient groups are involved at all stages of the decision making process around the funding of specialised treatments.

Patients are involved in the policy working groups that develop policy propositions, as well the Clinical Reference Groups and National Programmes of Care board which collectively develop policies and which both have patient and public voice members. The Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG), which makes recommendations around prioritisation, also has an independent lay chair and members. Patients and patient groups can also register as stakeholders and will then be invited to comment on draft policies during stakeholder testing and public consultation. Registered stakeholders are kept informed of progress and are notified when final decisions are made. Patient groups can request a stakeholder surgery with NHS England at any point during the policy development process to raise any issues or concerns they may have.

NHS England ensures that all newly adopted clinical commissioning policies and service specifications are published on its website, and simultaneously cascaded via local commissioning teams to relevant providers and clinical teams. This helps to ensure that patients receive up to date advice on the availability and funding of National Health Service specialised treatments pertinent to them during their clinical consultation.

While the minutes of CPAG are not published, the key information that it used as the basis of its recommendation made on each clinical policy in 2016 was published when the 22 clinical policies went out to public consultation. The methodology used by CPAG to group the policies into five levels has also been published, as have the final recommendations.

The Government has laid out its plans to improve transparency in Specialised Commissioning in its Treasury Minute in response to the 10th Report of the Public Accounts Committee, Session 2016-17, HC397.

Details of its response can be found at the following address from page 53:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/565426/57448_Cm_9351_Treasury_Minutes_Accessible.pdf

The CPAG is not a decision making body – it makes recommendations to NHS England on clinical priorities. Final decisions are made by the Specialised Services Commissioning Committee and the committee's decisions are reported to the NHS England Board and published as part of the Board Papers.

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