Morning, Monday, 30th November 2026
Online
This conference will consider next steps for NICE as its role continues to evolve in response to the 10 Year Health Plan and the changing needs of England’s health and care system.
It will bring together stakeholders and policymakers to assess how NICE’s long-term approach to guidance, evidence standards, and decision-making may need to adapt in the context of wider priorities for prevention, earlier intervention, digitally enabled care, faster access to innovation, and more equitable access. Discussion will consider implications of the increased cost-effectiveness threshold for NICE evaluation methods, NHS funding decisions, and the adoption of new technologies and treatments.
Planned sessions will examine implementation and early impact of the new MRHA-NICE Accelerated Aligned Pathway, including priorities for streamlining regulation and market access, and the role of Integrated Scientific Advice. Attendees will also consider NICE’s expanded technology appraisal process and priorities for widening equitable access to high-impact digital tools, diagnostics and medical devices that address the NHS’s most pressing challenges, alongside what international approaches to wider societal value may mean for future health technology assessment methodologies.
Further discussion will explore how to manage safe disinvestment from less effective or outdated interventions and maximising the value of technologies already in use, as well as the development of Modern Service Frameworks and how they can be integrated with existing NICE guidance. Priorities for tackling health inequalities will also be considered, including progress in the collaboration between NICE and the NHS Race and Health Observatory, and the recent modular update to health technology evaluation methods.
Overall, areas for discussion include:
- future priorities and 10 Year Health Plan alignment:
- ways forward for NICE’s processes in supporting the wider ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan
- ensuring guidance meets the evolving needs of the health system
- implications of the increased cost-effectiveness threshold for guidance development and NHS decision-making
- MHRA-NICE Accelerated Aligned Pathway:
- streamlining regulation and market access - ensuring patients benefit from innovation more quickly - assessing the impact of the Integrated Scientific Advice service
- priorities for supporting UK life sciences competitiveness
- widening access to healthtech:
- fairer access to digital tools, diagnostics and medical devices
- priorities for identifying technologies that meet the NHS’s most critical and urgent needs
- NICE’s expanded technology appraisal process
- international approaches to incorporating wider societal impacts within healthtech assessment methodologies
- phasing-out less effective innovations:
- ways forward for safely phasing-out outdated interventions without disrupting care - priorities for improving the outcomes and value delivered by innovations already in use
- development of Modern Service Frameworks:
- integration with existing guidance
- lessons from National Service Frameworks
- alignment with Health Plan aims for increasing care delivery in community settings and shifting towards a more digitally-enabled and preventative model
- tackling inequalities:
- progress and next steps for the Race and Health Observatory and NICE collaboration
- de-biasing new and existing clinical guidelines
- examining the modular update to the health technology evaluations manual
