The Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), Sir John Armitt, has written a letter to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Rt Hon Darren Jones MP, outlining the NIC's plan to support the government's upcoming ten-year infrastructure strategy, scheduled for publication in spring 2025. The NIC will conduct supplementary analysis in critical areas, including the role of transport in fostering economic growth, optimising public investment programmes, developing an effective infrastructure pipeline, integrating strategic and spatial planning, and flood risk management. In addition, the NIC will conduct a government-commissioned study on electricity distribution networks to ensure they can meet future demand. This work will build on recommendations from the NIC’s second National Infrastructure Assessment, aiming to align with key government priorities such as housing delivery, net zero targets, and industrial strategy objectives.

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has published a baseline report, containing the key topics it will consider in its next major assessment of the UK’s long term infrastructure priorities. This will be published in 2023, following analysis of the current performance of key sectors. Its priorities will include: identifying the infrastructure needed for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage to decarbonise parts of the economy; improving recycling rates; and the long term investment needs for surface transport within and between cities and towns. The NIC has also launched a call for evidence designed to support the NIC in its 2023 assessment. The deadline for submissions is 4 February 2022.

This Practice Note outlines the role of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), explains the NICE clinical guidelines and provides examples of how to search and use those guidelines in practice. What is the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and what does it do? The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an executive non-departmental public body established by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It was originally established in 1999 as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and in 2005 became NICE. NICE provides guidance to health, public health and social care practitioners and commissioners, develops quality standards and provides information services across health and social care. There are three main areas in which NICE provides guidance, namely technology appraisals, clinical guidance and interventional procedures. What is NICE clinical guidance? NICE clinical guidance is comprised of evidence-based recommendations to help improve and develop the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases and conditions. The guidance covers a wide range of conditions including cardiovascular, cancer, ear, nose, throat, eye,

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have announced a joint information-sharing agreement intended to accelerate access to new medicines for patients in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. As part of the implementation of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan for England, the initiative invites pharmaceutical companies to register early with both agencies to support parallel decision-making on licensing and value. According to the agencies, this coordinated approach is expected to result in medicines being approved for NHS use at the same time as they are licensed for use in the UK, with an anticipated reduction in access times of three to six months. To benefit from the service, companies are advised to register products on UK PharmaScan, the national horizon scanning database, at least three years before the expected marketing authorisation date. The initiative forms part of the government’s wider industrial strategy, which includes a target to reduce administrative costs for businesses by 25%.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and NHS England have jointly opened a consultation highlighting a new way for MedTech developers to access NHS funding to fast-track clinically and cost-effective products for use by the healthcare system. This aims to enhance patient outcomes, and the proposals will provide greater certainty for MedTech innovators and suppliers, committed to automatic funding to aid routine commissioning for those technologies that meet a required criteria. The consultation will close on 15 August 2024.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has announced that the government has confirmed it will increase the thresholds NICE uses to evaluate whether new medicines are cost effective for NHS use, aiming to improve the operating environment for pharmaceutical companies and support innovation. NICE said the newly agreed thresholds of £25,000–£35,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY), replacing the current £20,000–£30,000/QALY range, may allow an additional 3–5 new medicines or indications to be recommended each year, and will be applied from April 2026 once regulations change. NICE also welcomed government support for introducing a new value set for valuing health-related quality of life, which may further impact cost effectiveness. NICE intends to apply the threshold changes to new and ongoing technology appraisals and noted that companies must submit evidence swiftly and price products fairly.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has announced its new approach to prioritisation and its priorities for 2024–2025. The new approach to prioritisation includes launching a new prioritisation board which comprises of senior members of NICE, ensuring focus on the right topics and oversight of the guidance portfolio. The board decisions will centre around a new prioritisation framework which is applied consistently across all topics. NICE’s priorities for 2024–2025 include mental health, early cancer detection and diagnosis, diabetes, women’s health and neurology.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published its final draft guidance which recommends exagamglogene autotemcel (Casgevy), an advanced therapy medicinal product (ATMP), for patients with severe beta-thalassaemia. This recommendation is for patients, 12 years and over, with the condition who need regular blood transfusions to manage their condition and when a blood and bone marrow transplant is suitable, but no donor is available. Casgevy, which comes at a high cost at over £1.6m per course of treatment, will be available through the Innovative Medicines Fund to enable the collection of more data about its clinical and cost effectiveness. It will, therefore, be funded immediately to accelerate roll-out for up to 460 people eligible for the treatment.

The Board of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has approved changes to the criteria used to decide which treatments for ultra-rate, debilitating conditions should be evaluated via the highly specialised technologies (HST) programme. The amended criteria, which will be implemented from 1 April 2025, aim to ensure decisions about which treatments are routed through the HST programme are more consistent, predictable and transparent.

The Highly Specialised Technologies (HST) Programme evaluates technologies for ultra-rare diseases (defined in NICE strategic principles, and previously referred to as ‘very rare’). The HST Programme is designed to be used in exceptional circumstances. It can be challenging to identify the exceptional circumstances when the HST methods and processes should be used. This is because of the difficulty in getting the information needed at the point of a routing decision. Proxy information is often relied on and used to make judgements. The consultation opened on 19 December 2024 and will run until Thursday, 30 January 2025, with a closing time of 5 pm for comments.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has launched a public consultation on the proposed adoption of the new UK EQ-5D-5L value set. This aims to support more accurate assessments of how treatments improve health-related quality of life, replacing an older value set based on early 1990s data. Key proposals include updating NICE technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies guidance manual (PMG36) and the developing NICE guidelines manual (PMG20) to require EQ-5D-5L with the Rowen et al. 2026 UK value set for utility values in cost–utility analyses, with EQ-5D-3L data mapped to 5L. It also proposes applying the same 5L standard in HealthTech evaluations via PMG36. The consultation includes impact assessments on cost-effectiveness calculations, the severity modifier, quality-adjusted life year (QALY) shortfall estimates and equalities and health inequalities. The consultation closes on 13 May 2026.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published draft guidance on using AI technologies to detect fractures on X-rays in urgent care. The draft guidance recommends that one of four AI technologies—namely TechCare Alert, BoneView, RBfracture, or Rayvolve—can be used to help detect fractures alongside a trained healthcare professional reviewing the X-ray in England. NICE believes that using AI could help reduce variation in care across the country, as well as the number of fractures missed at initial presentation, and prevent further injury or harm to people between the initial assessment and the decision on further treatment. It has been noted that the use of these technologies is considered low risk and will not lead to an increase in unnecessary referrals to fracture clinics. The consultation closes on 5 November 2024.