NICE announces National HealthTech Access Programme

A programme to help provide faster access to healthcare technology across England and Wales has been announced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The National HealthTech Access Programme (previously called the rules-based pathway) will expand NICE’s technology appraisals programme to incorporate health technologies.

This will enable a small selection of high-impact technologies to be reimbursed and made available across the entire health service in the same way as medicines. 

Professor Jonathan Benger, chief executive of NICE, said: “When NICE was founded 26 years ago, it set out to end the postcode lottery in access to medicines. 

“We’re now extending that same clarity and fairness to HealthTech. 

“These reforms mean that clinically and cost-effective medical devices, diagnostics and digital tools will start to be reimbursed and made available consistently across the NHS.

“This will give patients faster access to proven technologies and ensure NHS resources are spent where they make the greatest difference.”

The first two topics to go through the programme are capsule sponge tests for detecting oesophageal cancer and AI tools for identifying prostate and breast cancer.

AI tools for interpreting images of tissue samples have the potential to transform diagnostic pathways for suspected prostate and breast cancer—two of the NHS’s largest caseload areas.

The AI tools are algorithms that analyse these images, highlight suspicious regions and grade tumour to support pathologists by reducing routine workload, improving consistency, and enabling faster prioritisation of high-risk cases.

Ministers have also referred two other topics to NICE subject to further evidence: technologies to improve detection of endometrial cancer in women with unexplained vaginal bleeding, and the use of AI-to help analyse chest X-rays for suspected lung cancer in primary care referrals.

The programme is a collaborative approach between NICE, the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Office for Life Sciences. 

It forms part of a strategic open innovation approach to HealthTech set out in the government’s 10 year health plan to create a better experience for patients and NHS professionals.