Innovations in clinical practice, drugs and other technologies can improve the quality and extent of patients’ lives – but they are expensive. Established in 1999, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been at the centre of numerous controversies over its recommendations about which new treatments are sufficiently cost effective to be made available on the NHS. But for those facing debilitating or life threatening illness, can a price be put on life? Should we be prepared to pay as much as necessary to save lives? Is NICE the answer, or part of the problem? Filmed at the Battle of Ideas, debate gets heated among top experts.
Recommended links:
- Article by Robert Watts and Jamie McGinnes, The Sunday Times: NHS drug quango on spending spree
- Article by Kate Delvinm, The Daily Telegraph: Terminally ill patients ‘being penalised by Nice for having rare conditions’
