Drug watchdog to speed up reviews

LONDON (Reuters) - Health-effectiveness watchdog NICE will aim to complete appraisal of newly launched drugs within a few months rather than the two or more years it takes a present, the Department of Health said on Monday.

The move, announced as part of a major review of the state funded National Health Service in England, is designed to reduce local variations in the availability of new drugs for patients.

The right of patients to be prescribed drugs approved as cost-effective by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will be enshrined in a new constitution for the NHS.

The government hopes the measures will help end the "postcode lottery" while a drug is awaiting approval, where patients living in one health authority's region may be denied a treatment which a neighbouring authority has decided to fund.

Similar measures are already in place to speed up the approval of cancer drugs.

NICE will also gain a wider role in defining and selecting national quality standards in medical practice across the NHS.

"We will expand NICE to make sure that appraisals of technologies, for drugs but more importantly of guidelines, comes through at a faster stream," Health Minister Lord Darzi, author of the review, told reporters.

Since 1999, NICE has led the world in measuring the cost-effectiveness of new treatments and deciding which ones are worth using on the state-run health service.

Its actions are closely watched by other governments and insurers.