Cost of new drugs could be putting NHS patients at risk

The NHS could be paying over the odds for new drugs and could be causing more harm than good, research by health economists at the University of York has revealed today.

The study looked at the implication of NHS spending on the health of patients and revealed that the current threshold of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) used to measure the value of new drugs is too high.

This research was funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council and indicates that the amount spent by the NHS on new drugs is too high, as the amount that can be afforded by the NHS is significantly lower than previously estimated.

The University predict that, in the long term, this could result in the treatment that patients receive suffering as funds are used to pay for new drugs instead of being spent on other patient services.

One of the authors of the study, Professor Karl Claxton, said: “The increasing pressure to approve new drugs more quickly at prices that are too high will only increase the harm done to NHS patients overall. The political pressure to support a multinational pharmaceutical sector cannot justify the real harm that has and will continue to be done to NHS patients.”

The current threshold for NICE, is based on a method of measurement called quality-adjusted life years (QALY). QALY is a recognised measure of length and quality of life and judges how effective new drugs are at improving and extending someone’s life and whether the benefits outweigh the health at risk because resources are unavailable.

The research has been conducted to improve accountability for spending by analysing NHS data that is freely available and hopes to make the best use of information that is available.

The current threshold for NICE is £30,000 per quality adjusted life year and research concluded that £13,000 of NHS resources adds only one QALY to the lives of patients in the NHS. This indicates that other patients could be at risk as the NHS continues to overspend on new drugs.

The study revealed that the current levels of spending could result in the loss of more than 700 quality-adjusted life years in patients with cancer, respiratory, circulatory and gastrointestinal diseases.

Furthermore the report indicated a reduction in the quality of life in patients with mental health problems and neurological diseases, estimated at more than 400 quality-adjusted life years for each £10m of NHS funding.

Co-author Professor Mark Sculpher added: “The research demonstrates that the threshold to gauge cost-effectiveness and how much the NHS can afford to pay for benefits offered by new drugs is a scientific question that can be informed by evidence and analysis.”