Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Accepted in Part
Prepare regulatory and delivery systems for future personalised preventative healthcare innovations.
Recommendation
Exciting innovations are on the horizon and have the potential to transform preventative healthcare. While the timeframe for such innovations, like a personalised cancer vaccine, is unknown, future planning must be done on the assumption that personalised therapeutics will become available. NHS England, and the MHRA and JCVI, need to be ready to play their part in ensuring these innovations can reach patients as quickly as possible, and the Department itself has a crucial role in ensuring this happens. It would be incredibly disappointing to reach a point where the vaccines themselves were ready but the infrastructure to approve and deliver them was still some time away. (Paragraph 41) Prevention in health and social care: vaccination 15
Government Response Summary
The government outlines existing effective regulatory and delivery processes for new medicines and states it monitors partner organizations. It highlights £10 million funding allocated to MHRA to accelerate bringing innovative medicines to UK patients, aligning with the goal of faster access.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
The regulatory and delivery processes for the introduction of new medicines, including novel vaccines, is outlined in Annex A, for which partner organisations own planning responsibility. In the Department’s sponsorship capacity, DHSC continues to monitor partners’ role in supporting the introduction of such medicines. The Department recognises the key role of UKHSA in providing secretariat, modelling and health economics capacity support for JCVI as captured in the Department’s strategic remit letter to UKHSA7 and UKHSA’s 3-year strategic plan8. The UK system for reviewing new immunisation products for potential programmes is effective and responsive. It is grounded in scientific review of evidence and allows for a fast response to outbreaks, and to new products being developed. The JCVI membership is comprised of experts in a wide range of relevant fields and their combined expertise ensures robust and timely review of new and emerging evidence in the field. If it is needed, the JCVI can recruit members with specific skills and expertise to its sub-committees. These sub-committees then report to the main committee. JCVI reviews modelling work to assess a potential vaccination programme’s cost-effectiveness and impact. Where necessary, second opinion modelling may also be sought. Various modelling groups have supported the JCVI including UKHSA modellers and academic groups. DHSC also commissions second-opinion modelling to support the work of the JCVI via the Mathematical & Economic Modelling for Vaccination and Immunisation Evaluation (MEMVIE) project. The Department is working closely with the JCVI and UKHSA to support resources being available to support outbreak response, as with the London polio response, and regular improvement of all extant immunisation programmes, as with the recent changes to Shingles and HPV programmes. This support includes funding for external modelling contracts as well as internal resource allocation. At Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced a total of £10 million over the next two years for MHRA to help bring innovative new medicines and medical technologies to UK patients more quickly. The funding will be used to accelerate routes for bringing innovative medical products developed in the UK onto the market, as well as the those made and approved by other trusted regulatory partners globally.