External Seminar Presentations

Methods to estimate the cost-effectiveness threshold for the NHS
 
Summary: Many jurisdictions use cost-effectiveness analysis to support decision making regarding the reimbursement, coverage or funding of new medical technologies. Any decision based on such methods requires an estimate of the threshold above which the costs of improving health outcomes are considered prohibitively high. The fixed budget available to fund health care in the NHS requires the cost-effectiveness threshold to reflect the opportunity costs (health forgone) associated with additional expenditure on new technologies.  Although this is consistent with the conceptualisation of the threshold used by NICE, little empirical work has been undertaken to quantify its value.  Furthermore, numerous methodological issues exist in undertaking such estimation.  This talk reports on-going research on the methods and empirics of the NHS cost-effectiveness threshold funding by the NHIR and MRC.