Tories plan faster drug approval

NICE decides what drugs the NHS should pay for

The Conservatives have promised to cut the approval time for new NHS drugs from an average of 18 months to between three and six months.

The party has vowed to overhaul the medicine watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

A key element of the plan would be to remove the need for final ministerial approval for a new drug.

NICE's funding decisions are often controversial and have been challenged.

The watchdog decides what drugs the NHS should pay for in England and Wales, and their guidelines are usually adopted in Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, the equivalent role of NICE in approving drugs is undertaken for the Scottish NHS by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC).

Better access

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said under a Conservative government, the watchdog would be allowed to consider the wider social cost of denying a drug to patients when assessing its value or benefit.

The Tories would also shift the burden of proof of the effectiveness, so that it would be up to the pharmaceutical company to prove the drugs work rather than NICE to prove they do not.

Mr Lansley said: "Patients in the NHS in Britain get slower access to new medicines than any other major European country.

"Too often the NHS treats NICE as an excuse for delay. We have to move to a system where NICE facilitates access to the best care at the earliest possible time."

In June, the government set out its plans to speed up the approval of drugs for use in the NHS and end the so-called "postcode lottery".

The most controversial drug to go through the process has been the breast cancer therapy Herceptin.

It was finally approved by NICE in 2006 after a number of patients had taken their primary care trust to court over their refusal to fund treatment.

But in recent years the drugs advisory body has started to use a fast-track process which can take as little as six months to complete.

Similar to the Tory suggestion, this uses manufacturer data to assess the drug and is only done when one treatment is being looked at for one condition.

Some NICE appraisals can include several drugs or looking at one drug for several uses.