"
NICE is constituted currently as a Special Health Authority, and is
accountable directly to the NHS chief executive - the permanent secretary at the Department of Health - and the Secretary of State for Health.
With effect from 1 April 2013, the
status of NICE will change from a SHA to that of an executive non-departmental public body. Its name will also change to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to reflect changes being made to its role and functions; the acronym will remain the same."
"
NICE's clinical credibility was called into question by the Relenza affair, when the Institute's findings were challenged. This led to criticism of the procedures by which NICE contracted out its research work. Reforms undertaken since the Select Committee report have largely eliminated this complaint, as standards of procurement have improved. This lack of credibility led to a situation where NICE was working largely in competition with the alternative assessment bodies it was intended to supersede for some time.
The Institute also has a controversial responsibility for encouraging "innovation" in the pharmaceutical industry, and some of its decisions have led to
concern about its independence from business."
"It has also been argued widey that NICE should have greater responsibility for selecting its own work agenda. The priority given to technology appraisals -
focusing on one specific treatment - has been questioned over its narrowness; it has been argued that NICE should focus its attention on clinical guidance,
which looks at the whole range of treatment options for a particular condition."
"
In the meantime the Department of Health has agreed an initial list of
joint NHS/social care topics for NICE to begin working on as from April 2013.
These include:autism in adults and children; mental well-being of older people in residential care; the transition between health and social care, including discharge planning, admission avoidance, reducing readmissions and reducing unnecessary bed occupancy; medicines management in care homes; management of physical and mental co-morbidities of older people in community and residential care settings; domiciliary care; transition between children and adult services; child maltreatment."
So with the change in status in 2013 it is no longer "
accountable directly to the NHS chief executive - the permanent secretary at the Department of Health - and the Secretary of State for Health."
(?)
So who is it now accountable to?