NICE publishes formulary guidance
pharmafile | December 19, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | ABPI, NHS, NICE, formularies, formulary
NICE has published its first guidance on good practice for those involved in working out what medicines should be made available on the NHS.
The main thrust of the new document is that drugs with a positive NICE technology appraisal should go into the local formulary automatically.
Chief pharmaceutical officer Dr Keith Ridge urged local health systems to use this guidance to review their approach to formularies, “ensuring they are patient focused, outcomes based and support optimised use of medicines”.
The move backs up Ridge’s letter to NHS prescribing leads in August which told them they must incorporate NICE guidance into their formularies.
Under the NHS Constitution, patients have the right (where appropriate) to a medicine if it has been appraised by NICE – but critics argue formularies have in practice been used to block new treatments from NICE, or delay their use to help cut costs.
The government’s Innovation Health and Wealth report, published a year ago, outlined the ‘NICE Compliance Regime for Technology Appraisals’ designed to end postcode lotteries and ensure all medicines are available to patients 90 days after approval.
The new guidance – in putting the automatic inclusion of NICE-approved drugs up front – reinforces this idea, along with two other points which NICE highlights:
- For medicines without a NICE technology appraisal, ensure there is no further duplication of the NICE evidence assessment, or challenge to an appraisal recommendation
- Publish all relevant local formulary information online, in a “clear, simple and transparent way” which can be easily understood.
The ABPI has welcomed the guidance, chief executive Stephen Whitehead calling it “an important step forward” to help the NHS get new medicines to patients more quickly.
But he warns: “The next steps will be to ensure that there is strong local implementation of this guidance before formularies are due to be published by all NHS organisations by 1 April 2013.”
Adam Hill
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