Societal views on NICE, cancer drugs fund and value-based pricing criteria for prioritising NHS resources

Abstract: NICE’s criteria for accepting higher incremental cost  effectiveness ratios for some medicines over others, and the  introduction of the Cancer Drugs Fund in England, are all assumed to  reflect societal preferences for NHS resource allocation. Robust  empirical evidence to this effect is lacking. I shall present the  findings of a survey aimed to determine whether the UK public support  these and other criteria for prioritising scarce NHS resources,  including those of the proposed value-based pricing system for new  medicines.