GPs in commissioning groups in England will not have to make decisions on whether individual drugs are cost effective and whether they should be available on the NHS, after an apparent U turn by the government on its plans to downgrade the role of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in recommending drugs.

Under the health secretary’s original plans, laid down in the draft Health and Social Care Bill, NICE would still have appraised new products but would no longer make a recommendation as to whether they should be funded by the NHS. Instead the government planned to introduce value based pricing in 2014 and negotiate …