NICE to confer on taking greater account of patients’ views

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is to invite patients and health economists to comment on the factors it uses to decide which drugs to recommend for use in the NHS. But it has denied suggestions in press reports that it will be radically overhauling its processes.

The move comes in the wake of research that proposes an alternative way of apportioning monetary value to drugs that is based on what patients would be prepared to pay in return for living longer (Health Economics, doi:10.1002/hec.1416).

In common with other public sector healthcare bodies NICE uses the quality adjusted …