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Written question asked by Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 23 February 2015, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 25 February 2015. It was answered by George Freeman (Conservative) on Monday, 2 March 2015 on behalf of the Department of Health.

NHS: Finance

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons NHS England has established screening groups to consider individual funding requests (IFRs) before a formal review by an IFR panel can take place; what information IFR screening groups require before making a decision on whether to submit a request to an IFR panel; whether decisions made by IFR screening groups can be appealed; how many IFR screening groups are in operation; what information is collected on decisions taken by IFR screening groups; and if he will make a statement.

Answer

NHS England has advised that screening panels are in place to ensure that individual funding requests (IFRs) not appropriate for its IFR panel to consider are screened out (e.g. those for services commissioned by clinical commissioning groups or those where the treatment is already commissioned by NHS England). For the screening to take place, a fully completed IFR request form must be submitted. The IFR request form is available at:

www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/policies/gp/

An appeal cannot be made against the decision of a screening panel unless further information pertinent to the request becomes available. Screening panels take place every week in the four NHS England regions.

NHS England collects data centrally on the numbers of IFRs screened but this is not broken down to individual drug level.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
224945
Session
2014-15
Related items
NHS: Finance
Tuesday, 17 March 2015
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Disclosure of information Finance NHS Medical treatments
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk