The annual conference of health watchdog Nice, which opens today, is hardly likely to be the social event of the festive season. But amid tightening NHS budgets and rising public demand for expensive new drugs, the event has possibly never been more relevant.
Recent years have seen the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence face accusations of penny-pinching from the pharmaceutical industry, patient groups, charities and MPs. But its decisions added a net cost of £1,022m to the NHS budget over the past three years.
Given how emotive issues such as cancer treatment are, we need a dispassionate body able to weigh up the benefits and costs of different treatments. While a drug like Herceptin may benefit hundreds of patients, given the limited NHS budget there's a good case for saying money would be better spent on improving radiotherapy services, which benefit thousands of patients.
With more and more expensive drugs set to come on the market in the near future, perhaps it's not surprising that one of the keynote speeches of the conference is calling for a shift in emphasis on clinical care to preventing ill health. After all if lifestyle changes prevent people from developing diseases that in turn reduces the vast NHS drugs bill.
Some may see the call by Julian Le Grande - often touted as Tony Blair's favourite health economist - as an excuse to approve fewer drugs for NHS patients. But given that the government has done little to protect public health budgets - aided by NHS trusts to balance their books - perhaps we need Nice to take a stand and refocus efforts to promote healthy living.
