More innovative healthcare technologies could soon be adopted by the NHS under reforms proposed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
NICE says the changes ‘aim to transform’ how medical devices, diagnostics, and digital and AI health technologies are evaluated as the NHS moves from ‘analogue to digital’, ‘hospital to community’, and ‘treatment to prevention’. The organisation explained: “The plans enable more products to be evaluated, and remove the requirement for medical devices to be cost saving for them to be recommended for use in the NHS.”
Instead, NICE explains, independent committees will assess all technologies based on cost-effectiveness, balancing the cost of the technology with the benefits it brings to patients and the service, which may include savings or efficiencies.
The move is part of a series of proposals to set up NICE’s HealthTech programme for the next decade and beyond as the NHS moves from ‘analogue to digital’. The proposed changes will, NICE maintains, improve the productivity of the NHS, with the roll-out of new technologies and digital approaches to help more people receive the care they need in the community.
Since launching its HealthTech programme, NICE has recommended ‘innovative technologies’ such as hybrid closed loop systems for managing blood glucose levels in type 1 diabetes, digitally enabled therapies for adults with depression, and a technology which looks for a genetic variant in babies to guide antibiotic use and prevent hearing loss.
NICE said: “Our transformation aims to deliver clearer, quicker, and more targeted guidance that fits NHS priorities. We want to identify and accelerate the adoption of the most effective devices, interventions, digital solutions, and diagnostic tools into the NHS, where they can transform patient care and outcomes. We’ve already cut guidance development time without compromising quality. This is the next step.”
Mark Chapman, director of HealthTech at NICE, added: “Our proposed new approach – including a multi-tech cost-effectiveness approach and revised assessment methods, will create opportunities for innovative solutions that previously might not have reached our independent committees for consideration because they weren’t cost saving.
Key changes include:
- merging three existing programmes into a single HealthTech programme;
- introducing a ‘lifecycle evaluation approach’ to consider technologies for early or routine use in the NHS, and consider those already in use;
- making ‘multi-tech assessments’ of similar technologies with the same purpose standard practice.
A consultation has now begun on the proposed changes, and comments can be submitted until 6 March 2025.
