Transforming NICE
Over the next few years, NICE will transform.
We will continue to help you deliver the most effective care.
But we will evolve, to make sure we're meeting the changing needs of the health and care system.
Our
achievements
in 2022-23
We applied light-touch proportionate evaluations to low risk treatments, up to 20 weeks faster than our normal process.
We have evaluated medicines on average 17% faster, meaning thousands of patients can access new treatments sooner.
We appraised over 70% more medicines than in 2019-20.
The UK is 3rd globally for the number of medicines commercialised within 1 year of regulatory approval.
We pioneered a world-leading evaluation and payment model for antimicrobials, leading to approval of the first new drug in a decade.
We brought together all our recommendations on health inequalities in one place, to support integrated care systems.
We recommended 20 digital technologies. These include 8 digital therapies for depression and anxiety disorders with the combined potential to help more than 40,000 people.
We launched our first practical resource to support integrated care systems with productivity and recovery. The resource matched relevant NICE guidance and recommendations to areas of productivity and recovery opportunities.
A new breast cancer treatment we recommended through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) became the 100th treatment to be funded through CDF. Allowing real-world data to be gathered on promising medicines, while giving patients access to them.
We've developed the first real-world evidence framework, to illustrate how real-world data can fill gaps in our knowledge and drive access to innovations for patients.
Transforming NICE: delivering more relevant, timely and useable guidance
Dr Sam Roberts, chief executive of NICE
NICE’s purpose is to help practitioners and commissioners get the best care to people fast, while ensuring value for the taxpayer.
We’ve achieved this for over 20 years through our principles of independence, transparency and rigour. These are principles that are globally respected, and will never be compromised.
Since NICE was established in 1999, we have delivered vast amounts of guidance – more than many other health technology assessment bodies across the globe.
In any given year we develop around 90 technology appraisals, and 80 medtech or interventional procedure topics. And we’ve developed more than 25,000 guideline recommendations in total.
But health and care has changed rapidly since our inception.
Digital health technologies, with the potential to transform healthcare, are constantly emerging. Evidence-based healthcare is evolving. The amount of health and care data has grown exponentially. And the healthcare system is facing unprecedented workforce and capacity pressures.
Consequently, we're taking measures to adapt.
Our principles, and the fundamental priorities remain the same. But given these new pressures, we're evolving to meet the changing needs of our users.
We'll maintain our independence, transparency and rigour. But we will now also focus on:
- relevance
- timeliness
- usability
- demonstrable impact.
Through our transformation plan - that we've now embarked on and which is set out below - you will see how we plan to evolve as an organisation.
This transformation will ensure we can meet the opportunities and challenges of the changing health and care landscape. It will also enable us to maintain our role in helping you to deliver the most effective and affordable care.
Our vision for transformation is ambitious, but it is necessary.
Through focusing on the relevance, timeliness, useability and impact of our products, I’m confident we’ll be well placed to address the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Dr Sam Roberts, chief executive of NICE
3 routes to transformation
We will transform by targeting 3 key areas:
- focusing on what matters most
- creating advice that’s useful and useable
- continually learning from data and implementation.
1. Focusing on what matters most
We will develop guidance and advice on topics where we can make the biggest difference to patient care.
These include areas that achieve the biggest health gains, realise greatest cost savings, or make the largest productivity improvements.
We'll continually update our methods to ensure we are addressing what society values.
And we’ll expand our medtech programme to focus on innovations in areas of significant unmet need.
We will also develop tools and resources to help our key users tackle areas of highest priority.
Examples of this work in 2022/23
- a practical web resource to help health and care professionals tackle health inequalities
- a resource that supports practitioners and commissioners with improving productivity
- a resource impact planner to help when estimating the costs or savings associated with implementing our guidance
- ground-breaking guidance on antimicrobials
- launching a health technology assessment lab (HTA Lab) that is helping develop creative solutions to complex problems in HTA
- publishing new technology appraisals guidance that for the first time gives additional, evidence-based consideration to the most severe diseases.
2. Creating advice that’s useful and useable
We’re making sure our guidance is up-to-date, easy to find and easy to use.
This makes sure we’re getting the right information, to the right people, at the right time.
Examples of this work in 2022/23
- Developing a new proportionate approach to our technology appraisal processes. Through this we applied light-touch, faster evaluations to simpler, low-risk treatments. This helped speed up our appraisals process by up to 45%.
- Fast-tracking patient access to promising health technologies through our Early Value Assessment (EVA) programme.
- Prioritising the guideline recommendations that matter most for more frequent updates. This is part of our ambition for ‘living' guidelines.
- Integrating advice by subject and through other channels, such as electronic health records.
3. Continually learning from data and implementation
We’re collecting and using real world data to actively shape and improve the health and care system.
We’ll learn from the real-world implementation of our guidance, by linking in with national implementation networks, the voluntary and community sector, and health and care sector.
Examples of this work in 2022/23
- Our real world evidence framework is advancing the use of real-world evidence in our guidance.
- We're collaborating with 5 international health technology assessment bodies. This will benefit people accessing healthcare globally.
- Our evidence standards framework is supporting commissioners to identify and purchase digital technologies that improve outcomes.
- We've set up a new voluntary community sector forum to bring together organisations who want to shape and influence our work.
- Our managed access schemes are getting patients faster access to treatments.
A transformed NICE: knowing we've achieved our vision
We’ll know that we’ve achieved our vision to evolve and transform our capabilities when we’re:
Delivering integrated, living guidance for practitioners and commissioners
We'll do this through continual, timely evaluation of medicines and medical technologies that are automatically included in clinical guidelines
Building the foundations of a national learning healthcare system
We'll achieve this through gathering feedback from our users, and monitoring the impact of our products on the NHS.
A transformed NICE: the view from our stakeholders
We'll also know we've achieved our aims, when our stakeholders tell us:
"NICE guidance is up to date and relevant to me. It takes account of things that are important to me, like quality of life."
"NICE guidance is easy to use alongside my busy clinical commitments. It is up to date and provides advice that addresses the most frequent problems I encounter."
"NICE guidance covers the most important innovations right through their life cycle, accounting for the full cost of implementation."
"NICE has created a globally unique ecosystem where I can get early market access for promising products and support with real world evidence generation."
Thank you
We have already made good progress in our transformation journey.
Our activity in 2022/23 shows the depth and range of work we've undertaken to evolve as an organisation. From taking a proportionate approach to technology appraisals, to using in-vitro data for the first time, and creating useful resources for integrated care systems.
These achievements were only possible through working closely with partners and stakeholders to offer flexible solutions to issues of data and value. We would like to thank them for their continued support on this vital work.
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