Feature / NICE update

NICE published the following guidance in March:

Clinical guidelines

• CG 157 Management of hyperphosphataemia – This clinical guideline offers best practice advice on the care of adults, children and young people with stage 4 or 5 chronic kidney disease (CKD) who have, or are at risk of, hyperphosphataemia. It is not possible to estimate with any degree of certainty the population that have CKD stages 4 and 5, and the proportion of these people who will currently be prescribed medication for the management of hyperphosphataemia. This is due to the wide variation in clinical practice and differences in clinical opinion. This report discusses the potential costs and savings that need to be considered at a local level. Commissioners are advised to check current practice in their local area and use the local costing template to ascertain the resource impact for their population.
• CG 158 Antisocial behaviour and conduct disorders in children and young people – The clinical guideline recommends different types of intervention for children and young people with conduct disorders and/or their parents or carers. Because of the variation in current practice and uncertainty about future practice, it is not possible to quantify the national cost impact of implementing the guidance. The report discusses potential costs and savings to be considered at a local level. It is anticipated the costing template will be used for the development of business cases in commissioning bodies to enable funding to be targeted to these interventions. Conduct disorder is associated with resource impacts for a range of public sector bodies, included in the costing tools.

Technology guidance

• TA 276 Colistimethate sodium and tobramycin dry powders for inhalation for treating pseudomonas lung infection in cystic fibrosis – This guidance is unlikely to result in a significant change in resource use in the NHS because the uptake and cost of colistimethate sodium DPI (Colobreathe) and tobramycin DPI (TOBI) is not anticipated to be significantly different from the cost of the current treatment practice. The manufacturer of colistimethate sodium DPI (Forest Laboratories UK) and the manufacturer of tobramycin DPI (Novartis) have agreed patient access schemes with the Department of Health, in which a confidential discount is applied to all invoices.

NICE update was prepared by Stephen Brookfield, (senior costing analyst) at NICE