UK MP's C'tee makes recommendations for faster and fairer NICE process

A UK House of Commons Health Committee report has criticized the manner in which the National Institute for Health and Clinical  Excellence(NICE), which advises on what therapies should be available on  the National Health Service, excluding Scotland, assesses expensive  treatments, saying this is "both inequitabale and inefficient use of  resources." The report from Members of Parliament follows a move to  allow patients, particularly those suffering with cancer, to pay  themselves for drugs not backed by the NICE, the so-called top-up  payments (Marketletters passim)

In the conclusions and recommendations of the House Health Committee  report, it is stated, among other things, that:

- the Department of Health has accepted the Health Committee's criticism  made in 2008 that the NICE had, in some cases, been too slow in  appraising new drugs. It welcomed the Department's commitment that the  maximum time between a drug's referral to the NICE for evaluation and  its availability for prescription will be six months;