Health and Social care Committee
Access to medical technologies in Wales
MT ToR 23 Royal Pharmaceutical Society
5th October 2012
Annwyl Llinos,
Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into access to medical technologies in Wales
On behalf of the Welsh Pharmacy Board of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and our members in Wales, I am pleased to contribute to the scoping exercise to help determine the terms of reference for the above inquiry.
We recognise the importance of access to medical technologies for patients in Wales and welcome the inquiry by the Committee and understand that on this occasion the scope of the inquiry is not intended to include access to medicines.
We would like to put forward the following issues for consideration in developing the scope of this inquiry:
1. Definition of ‘medical technologies’ – The Committee should establish as part of its terms of reference a clear definition of medical devices to ensure the parameters of the inquiry are clear to all involved. The Committee may wish to adopt the definition adopted by the NICE Medical Technologies Evaluation Programme as outlined in Appendix 1.
2. Barriers to medical technologies - The Committee should seek to establish what the current barriers are to accessing medical technologies and the impact of those barriers on quality of care and patients’ lives in Wales.
3. Good practice – The Committee may wish to explore areas of good practice to help inform final recommendations to improve access to medical technologies in Wales.
4. Evidence-based decision making – The extent to which the decision making process on providing medical technologies is transparent and underpinned by the best evidence available should be scrutinised though this inquiry to help determine the effectiveness of decisions made. The effectiveness of current processes for appraising new medical technologies for use in Wales should also be addressed by the Committee.
5. Funding criteria – How decisions to fund specific medical technologies are made in Wales is critical to understanding issues of patient access to those technologies. The Committee may wish to examine the extent to which funding criteria is standardised across Wales, how the cost-effectiveness of new medical technologies is being determined, and the extent to which public monies are being utilised to best effect.
I trust this
is helpful and look forward to the publication of the
Committee’s terms of reference for this inquiry.
Yn gywir,
Paul Gimson
RPS Director for Wales
Appendix 1: NICE Definitions of Medical Technologies for the Evaluation Programme
http://www.nice.org.uk/media/9CA/46/MTDefinition.pdf
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