ARTICLE SUMMARY:
The UK plans funding guarantees for medtech. Excerpted from Pathways’ Picks July 2: CMS Prior Authorization, FDA Cybersecurity Guide, and UK Funding Guarantees.
More medical devices will benefit from guaranteed funding by NHS England under new policies in the country. The national health provider and payor will be publishing its “10-Year Health Plan” this week, including a strategy to elevate the status of National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluations of select high-impact devices, diagnostics, and digital products to be in the same category as drug evaluations, which are linked to guaranteed funding. “To give patients across the UK the best possible care, there must be a clear route to funding when NICE recommends a technology - whether it’s a medicine, device or digital tool,” said Sam Roberts, chief executive of NICE. “Until now, that principle has only applied to medicines.” The 10-year plan also introduces the concept of an “innovator passport,” to allow new technology that has been assessed by one NHS hospital system to be easily rolled out to others. “The passports mean that once a healthcare tool has been assessed by one NHS organization, further NHS organizations will not be able to insist on repeated assessments, reducing the need for local NHS systems to spend their limited resources on bureaucratic processes that have already been completed elsewhere,” according to a UK government statement.