The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has awarded the Decision Support Unit contract to ScHARR for a third consecutive term. The five-year, £1 million award is further evidence of ScHARR’s position at the forefront of Health Technology Assessment in the UK.
With collaborating partners at the Universities of York and Leicester and a wider membership from Bristol, Brunel and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Unit brings together some of the UK’s leading academics to provide a research and training resource supporting NICE’s Technology Appraisal Programme.
The primary remit of the DSU is to provide an additional resource for NICE during the appraisal process, which assesses the clinical and cost-effectiveness of new treatments, often drugs. The DSU is typically called on when further analyses are required to help NICE’s decision making bodies.
The Unit also provides methodological guidance and training to NICE staff, pharmaceutical companies, the academic groups who write the appraisal reports, and members of the NICE decision making committees. Over the last 8 months, the Unit has been instrumental in the update process of the NICE Technology Appraisals Methods Guide, the key reference document for the appraisals process.
Dr Allan Wailoo has been Director of the Unit since 2006. “NICE and their advisory committees take some extremely difficult decisions when formulating their guidance to the NHS. It is key that such guidance is evidence based, authoritative and robust. The DSU has supported NICE since 2003 and winning a further 5 years funding is evidence of how valuable this truly collaborative initiative has been to the Institute.”
For more information about the DSU and its work, please visit their website
