10.01.13
NICE guidance adherence data published
The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has published experimental data on the use of NICE-recommended medicines and treatments by the NHS.
Published on behalf of the DH and the NHS Commissioning Board, the data points towards variation in the NHS in the use of such medicines. However, HSCIC highlights that the data is limited, and cannot be used to accurately consider the adherence to recommended treatment by independent organisations.
Furthermore, variation is “to be expected” across the NHS, due to differing population sizes, and options for treatments recommended by NICE.
The data covers 76 medicines and six medical technologies, with estimated and actual use by the NHS, the volumes of medicines used (primarily in primary care) per 100,000 of planned CCG population, the use of medical technologies in hospital trusts by the planned CCG of residence of the patient and volumes of medicines (used primarily in secondary care), presented as milligrams of drug purchased or provided by pharmaceutical companies by NHS trust per 100,000 hospital bed days.
The experimental data is available here.
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