NHS Treatment Costs

Steve Webb
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate she has made of the cost to the NHS of providing (a) drugs and (b) other treatments approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the last year for which figures are available.

Mr. Ivan Lewis
[holding answer 11 December 2006]: Each piece of guidance published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) contains an estimate of the cost to the national health service (NHS) of its implementation. NICE’s estimate of the total cost of providing the treatments recommended in its technology appraisal guidance published in the period October 2005 to October 2006 was £214.34 million for drugs and £126.7 million for other treatments. The Department has made no separate estimate of these costs.