Funding treatments

Funding non-routine medicines, assessments and treatments

Last Updated on Wednesday, 25 May 2011 11:11

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The NHS is legally obliged to provide funding and resources in England and Wales for medicines, assessments and treatments recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

However, in some instances NICE may not recommend a particular treatment. This is usually because there is not enough reliable evidence that the medicine, assessment or treatment under consideration is more effective than others for the same condition. This means that, for the time being, it should not be prescribed routinely on the NHS.

In exceptional circumstances NHS Nottinghamshire County can consider individual applications to fund non-routinely available medicines, assessments or treatments. Each application has to be weighed up against the responsibility to ensure that funding available for healthcare is used in a fair and effective manner for the overall benefit of the whole community.

What is Specialised Commissioning?

Specialised Commissioning is the means by which Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) work together to plan, buy and manage services which treat patients with rare conditions.

As the number of patients needing these treatments is small, it is beneficial for the nine PCTs based across the East Midlands to work together and commision through the East Midlands Specialised Commissioning Group (EMSCG), a dedicated NHS organisation with specialist skills and expertise in this field.

To find out more visit the East Midland Specialised Commissioning Group website by clicking here.

Commissioning policy – Procedures of Limited Clinical Value

NHS Nottinghamshire County and NHS Nottingham City buy healthcare on behalf of the local population. The money for this comes from a fixed budget. By law, we are required to keep within this budget.

Demand for healthcare is greater than can be funded from this fixed budget. Unfortunately, this means that some healthcare which patients might wish to receive and which professionals might wish to offer cannot be funded.

This has always been the situation since the start of the NHS, and happens across the country.

Our approach to this is to prioritise what we spend, so that the local population gets access to the healthcare that is most needed. This assessment of need is made across the whole population and, wherever possible, on the basis of best evidence about what works.

We also aim to do this in a way that is fair, so that different people with equal need have equal opportunity to access services.

You can talk to your GP about the policy and what it means for you. A copy of the policy can be found here - Prioritising procedures - Nottinghamshire [Adobe Acrobat PDF - 150.58 KB]

Policies and Resources

Last Updated on Thursday, 08 September 2011 10:02

There is a selection of documents, advice and forms listed below to help you understand how to access these services.