The special health authority that plays a key role in deciding which medicines and healthcare devices are bought up and distributed across Britain’s National Health Service came to Skolkovo on Friday in search of new innovations.
Representatives from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which answers to the Department of Health, held a seminar at the Skolkovo Innovation Center to explain to biomed firms the steps they need to take to get their products and services into the NHS.
Grace Jennings speaking at Skolkovo on Friday. Photo: sk.ru
The main function of NICE is to assess, with the help of an independent panel, how suitable a given health technology is to the NHS, and issue subsequent recommendations on adopting or rejecting them.
In practice, that means scanning foreign markets to bring their most cutting-edge innovations to the English market. But due to NHS funding restrictions, only a certain number of products can be assessed due to the high cost of the process.
“The two questions we ask at NICE is how well does the technology work compared to established practice in the NHS – that is, the outcome – and how much it costs compared to that practice,” said Grace Jennings, technical adviser at the body.
Casting the net as wide as possible increases the chances of hitting upon innovations that add value and reduces the risk of resource-sapping duds.
NICE’s original job when it was set up under Tony Blair in 1999 was to reduce the variation in the quality of healthcare offered across England, but its mandate has since been expanded to include public health and lifestyle propaganda.
Although the authority is financially dependent on the Department of Health, it is operationally independent, with non-governmental committees making the majority of its key decisions. It is now classed as a non-governmental public body.