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Increased pressure on Britain from Donald Trump Drug prices could wipe billions of dollars from the NHS budget, Experts have warned this is causing distress to “the majority of NHS patients”.
Health Think Tank, The The Nuffield Trust urged the government not to bow to drug companies’ demands to raise prices. It has been warned that the spending ceiling on new drugs is already too high.
It says a new deal will only drive up demand prices further and make healthcare in the UK more expensive.
The warning comes like this Sir Keir Starmer looks ready Bow to President Trump’s demands to give pharmaceutical companies more money, including raising the limits set by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) for spending on new pharmaceutical companies. drugs Up to 25 percent.
It is believed that this step is an attempt by the government to avoid this wave of new US tariffs President Trump considers anti-competitive practices by the UK.
However, In a report shared exclusively with Independent, Nuffield Trust Warns that the current NICE limit is already too high in terms of providing value for money, as it does not take into account the cheap benefits to the population from spending more money on GP access, A&E and surgery.
“Pharmaceutical company shareholders will benefit, but the majority of NHS patients will suffer, If it comes at the expense of improving wider NHS care,” said Sally Gainsbury, senior policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust.
“Even if the NHS budget was topped up to spend more on new medicines, an increase in the NICE threshold would mean that a larger proportion of total NHS funding would be diverted towards new medicines that bring a lower level of health benefit to the population as a whole, with the extra funding spent on expanding or extending existing services and treatments, such as GP appointments and elective surgeries,” she said.
Dr Laila McKay, Director of Policy at the NHS Confederation, He said his organization would be “very concerned” if trusts had to bear higher drug costs within their existing budgets. “NHS leaders are already making every effort to reduce the NHS deficit while protecting quality care, so any increase in medicines prices would need to be fully funded by the Treasury to avoid the risk of impacting financial or operational performance.”
The government has also previously rejected the pharmaceutical company’s request to extend the Voluntary Scheme for Pricing, Access and Development (VPAG) for branded medicines, which ensures a £2.5bn cap on price rises for NHS medicines, which the Nuffield Trust says will account for half the actual increase in the NHS budget next year.
The think tank said that although the government has placed the life sciences industry at the center of its economic development plans, the suggested changes to the drug pricing system would provide little guarantee that the government would get a return on its investment.
The think tank also challenged the pharmaceutical company’s threat that planned investments in the UK would be halted or canceled if the NHS did not increase the prices it pays for new medicines.
It says there is no evidence that the prices countries pay for new medicines, or the speed at which new medicines are adopted, influence the investment decisions of pharmaceutical manufacturers and developers.
He said that at a time when many in the US science and health research community see their work under threat through cuts in government funding and the promotion of anti-scientific research, “the UK government would do well not to underestimate the comparative advantage already given to health science in the UK”.
“The government must stand firm against pressure to weaken the controls that protect value for both patients and the taxpayer,” it says.
Under current rules, the NICE threshold measures whether a treatment provides good value for money. This means that if a medicine costs the NHS between £20,000 and £30,000 for each additional year of good quality life a patient adds, it is considered good value.
However, reports on Wednesday suggested the limit would rise by 25 per cent to £25,000 to £30,000.
The current methodology used by NICE to decide whether a new medicine is cost-effective does not take into account the cost of GP care, A&E visits or surgical procedures, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust and the London School of Economics (LSE).
Dr Hussein Nasi, associate professor of health policy at the London School of Economics, who co-authored the report: “If the aim is to extract as much health benefit as possible from the limited budget of the NHS, the figure currently paid is already too high, because the NHS could generate more health benefits for the same cost by expanding existing services.”
Another way of controlling UK spending is through an overall price cap on NHS spending for new branded medicines, known as a VPAG.
Under this agreement, if a pharmaceutical company increases prices above the current agreed increase limit of 3.75 per cent, they must pay the difference to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to protect the NHS from price increases.
While the government has already rejected calls to increase it by £2.5 billion, the Nuffield Trust said that for any new price deal to be beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry, the VPAG would also have to be increased, to prevent companies paying any increases beyond the current limit.
The DHSC and the British Pharmaceutical Industry Association were contacted for comment.