13.04.16
Consultation opens on proposals to prioritise specialised services to save money
Specialised medical treatments will face greater prioritisation to help NHS England save money, under guidelines which are currently under consultation.
The consultation, which NHS trust and CCG leaders are invited to take part in until 11 May, argues that although the budget for specialised services is around £14bn every year, NHS England has to increasingly prioritise the funding because of financial pressures. John Murray, director of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance, warned last year that overspend on specialised healthcare has led to ‘policy paralysis’.
Specialised medicine streams are often most vulnerable to funding cuts, with the role of National Clinical Director for Neurology recently cut to allow focus on priority areas such as cancer, mental health, diabetes, maternity and emergency care.
Under the proposals, the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) will have to categorise each proposed medicine, device or intervention as High Benefit, Medium Benefit or Low Benefit and ensure an equal spread of proposals in each category so that NHS England can prioritise them.
They will base their categorisation on a report from NHS England’s Clinical Effectiveness Team that summarises the patient benefit and the quality of evidence of clinical effectiveness.
CPAG may agree to recommend prioritisation of treatments for rare illnesses with limited published evidence of their effectiveness.
CPAG will then measure the benefit of the treatment based on the cost for each patient before NHS England’s Specialised Commissioning Oversight Group make a final recommendation to the Specialised Commissioning Committee on which proposals should be funded.
The consultation questions include asking whether NHS trust leaders agree with NHS England that there is no existing method for relative prioritisation that can be applied to specialised services; whether they agree that the method is fair, transparent and cost effective; and whether factors contributing to high prioritisation of treatments should include advocating parity between physical and mental healthcare, stimulating innovation and reducing health inequalities.
Last year NHS England proposed co-commissioning specialised services, leading to concerns that this would contribute to healthcare inequalities.
To take part in the consultation, click here.