Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Government moves to curb number of ineffective treatments in the NHS
Health Minister Andy Burnham today announced that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will begin a significant new programme of work to help the NHS identify and stop ineffective interventions and make health services more equitable across the country.
Reducing ineffective practice will potentially allow the NHS to reinvest millions of pounds on drugs and approaches that do improve patient care.
Andy Burnham said "This is not about cutting services that benefit patients. New drugs and treatments are continually emerging and trusts have to make difficult decisions about how to invest funding. I believe this important new work will show how the NHS can free up millions of pounds from obsolete or ineffective treatments."
"NICE has an excellent track record in identifying and recommending the most effective new treatments for widespread use in the NHS. But we need to ensure that we balance this with better advice on unnecessary and ineffective interventions that can be stopped."
In his annual report earlier this year, Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson highlighted unnecessary tonsillectomies and hysterectomies as procedures being regularly performed at an annual cost of £21million to the NHS, despite other treatment options being available. He called for disinvestment from established interventions that are of no proven value.
Commenting on today's announcement Liam Donaldson said "As technology advances to expand the range of possible health interventions, it is important that effective therapies to address significant health problems are adopted and that ineffective treatments are abandoned.
"NICE's new work programme will support this vital process by providing an objective assessment of the evidence."
As well as developing a new stream of guidance on treatments, which may be inappropriate or unnecessary for patients, NICE's programme of work will include:
- actively promoting existing NICE recommendations, on topics such as home haemodialysis.
- specific advice for NHS commissioners Identifying and highlighting recommendations within existing guidance that reduce ineffective practice
Further information on this work, including details of the first topics that the programme will look at, are being published today by NICE.
Reducing ineffective practice will potentially allow the NHS to reinvest millions of pounds on drugs and approaches that do improve patient care.
Andy Burnham said "This is not about cutting services that benefit patients. New drugs and treatments are continually emerging and trusts have to make difficult decisions about how to invest funding. I believe this important new work will show how the NHS can free up millions of pounds from obsolete or ineffective treatments."
"NICE has an excellent track record in identifying and recommending the most effective new treatments for widespread use in the NHS. But we need to ensure that we balance this with better advice on unnecessary and ineffective interventions that can be stopped."
In his annual report earlier this year, Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson highlighted unnecessary tonsillectomies and hysterectomies as procedures being regularly performed at an annual cost of £21million to the NHS, despite other treatment options being available. He called for disinvestment from established interventions that are of no proven value.
Commenting on today's announcement Liam Donaldson said "As technology advances to expand the range of possible health interventions, it is important that effective therapies to address significant health problems are adopted and that ineffective treatments are abandoned.
"NICE's new work programme will support this vital process by providing an objective assessment of the evidence."
As well as developing a new stream of guidance on treatments, which may be inappropriate or unnecessary for patients, NICE's programme of work will include:
- actively promoting existing NICE recommendations, on topics such as home haemodialysis.
- specific advice for NHS commissioners Identifying and highlighting recommendations within existing guidance that reduce ineffective practice
Further information on this work, including details of the first topics that the programme will look at, are being published today by NICE.
