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August 3, 2009Britain’s Not-So-NICE Decision on Painkillers
The U.K. Telegraph reports that tens of thousands of patients suffering with chronic back pain in the United Kingdom will have to forgo “painkilling injections” such as cortisone, after the government’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recently determined that “the evidence was limited” for the painkillers’ effectiveness.
Instead of funding the steroid injections, which total more than 60,000 annually, the single-payer health care system will instead push acupuncture or osteopathy for patients with persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
As noted in the Telegraph, “Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 (roughly $842) each for private treatment.”
Helen Evans, a registered general nurse in the United Kingdom and director of Nurses for Reform, has warned how comparative effectiveness research councils like NICE can worsen patient access to quality care.
Tags: comparative effectiveness research, NICE, painkillers, single-payer health care system, United Kingdom
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- Congressional Research Service Memorandum to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
- Letter from Senators Enzi and Coburn to Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius
- Letter to Health and Human Services Sectretary Sebelius from Senators Grassley and Enzi
- Congressional Budget Office letter to Chairman Stark of the Subcommittee on Health
- Proposed Rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for the Medicare Program
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