The publication of the Government response to the value based pricing consultation provides some further insight into current thinking. 188 responses are summarised to the 20 questions posed in the consultation, along with the Department of Health response to each. Of the 20 questions, seven asked yes/no questions along the lines of do you agree that X is best. Given that such questions will have been crafted with mandarin nuance, one might be surprised if some gave the wrong answers. Several did. more…

The “value based pricing” consultation paper” makes the following relevant references to the future of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). more…

The publication of the Department of Health’s consultation paper on value based pricing and the ongoing consultation on the Cancer Drugs Fund plus each consultation’s accompanying impact assessment mean that it is now possible to see what is being proposed. This blog looks at the essentials of value based pricing; later blogs will deal with more particular issues. more…

One approach to setting NICE’s cost per QALY threshold might be to survey the public.  In 2003 NICE and the Department of Health did just that, with a study  “assessing  the feasibility of estimating the value that the UK population might attach to a QALY.” more…

In December 2008 the Department of Health in England published the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme.  It describes how  the scheme will operate for at least five years from 2009. The previous scheme was to run to 2010 but the UK government withdrew it in February 2008 following a critical report from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). more…

As with his presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s approach to health reform will leave little to chance. His strategy for enacting the first major coverage expansion in more than 40 years is starting to take shape. He is building public support for reform early in the hope that it will be enough to counter the opponents of healthcare reform when they eventually flex their muscles. more…

We are now into the fifth month of the negotiations to reform the secretive and perverse (and essentially discredited) UK Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS), and we can safely assume that the discussions will be hotting up as the new terms must be in place by the beginning of September.

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