The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has launched a public consultation for the first updates to its health technology evaluations manual.
The manual, which was published in January 2022, outlines the process in which topics for NICE guidance are identified, selected and routed.
This includes everything from diagnostics and highly specialised technologies, all the way to interventional procedures, medical technologies and technology appraisal guidance.
📣Have your say on updates to NICE’s health technology evaluations manual.
— NICE (@NICEComms) June 27, 2023
Our consultation is now live, focusing on:
1️⃣ Implementing a proportionate to technology appraisals
2️⃣ A revised approach to updating appraisals for COVID-19 medicines.
➡️https://t.co/vqRmZQHp44 pic.twitter.com/oNnZTeoPjA
The first part of consultation will centre around formally including NICE’s proportionate approach to technology appraisals.
Following a year of pilot activity, April 2023 saw NICE launch interim methods and processes for its new proportionate approach.
The methods allows NICE to apply tailored measures to each technology evaluation – for example, appraisals for simple, low-risk treatments can go through much faster processes.
This has led to guidance being produced up to 20 weeks faster than the standard processes, as well as affording the organisation more time to deal with the more complex evaluations that call for more extensive support.
The other part of the consultation will focus on the revised approach to updating technology appraisals for Covid-19 medicines.
NICE launched a sperate consultation in this area earlier this year and, although a large number of people supported the wider course of action, many challenged the amount of time stakeholders had for engagement and making submissions.
The reliability and frequency of the data that feeds into the approach has also changed – NICE has therefore amended its approach to reflect the concerns raised in the consultation and the changes in data availability.
Even though people will now have more time to engage with update processes, NICE still predicts its revised approach will deliver guidance twice as fast as the typical review.
Image credit: iStock
