Dear John and Andy, regarding John's post on the thread further down the page, about the PQ from his MP to the sec. of state for health and the answer received from Dawn Primarolo......
i sent another email to NICE asking if it was true as Dawn Primarolo stated, that the DH are waiting for a report from NICE regarding their consultation and scoping for an Multi Technoloy Appraisal of dasatinib and nilotinib.
please see a copy of the answer from NICE below:
"Yes, the DH is awaiting to hear back our summary on the findings from the consultations and scoping workshops that we are currently completing for each of the topics included within the 17th wave minded referral. At the moment we are still in the scoping stage of running the workshops, and then require the time to internally prepare the documentation that the DH require.
After this NICE will await details of the formal referral (with the instruction to pursue the MTA) from the Department of Health, although I added in my original email that NICE anticipates this to be April/May 2008.
I hope this helps to clarify the situation."
Given that we now know the MTA takes 14.5 months from the date of formal referral to NICE from the DH and that, as stated above, NICE does not anticipate this to be before April or May this year, then we are looking at 17.5 months give or take before we have NICE guidance and equity of access for the whole of the UK.
Please write to your MP's and ask for them to keep up the pressure on the DH.
sandy