NICE International engagement with Chile

NICE International is a partner on a project led by the Division of Health Planning, Ministry of Health of Chile relating to “Building capacity on health technology assessment (HTA) processes in Chile”. This project is being pursued within the context of the Institutional Skills programme, an initiative of the Newton Fund administered by the British Council.  The Newton Fund is part of the UK’s official development assistance, and the British Council is one of eight ‘delivery partners’ on the UK side. The lead UK institution on the project is King’s College London  (KCL), Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine.

March 2016 – Chilean Study Visit to UK 

A key aspect of the Newton Fund project relates to the elicitation and application of ‘social values’ to inform prioritisation and decision making, particularly with respect to ‘high cost’ technologies. In pursuit of this, a delegation from the lead institution in Chile visited London end of March 2016 for a two-day workshop to learn more about the process of decision making within NICE and engage with the lead team at KCL. The first formal day of their visit involved engaging with a series of presentations from NICE describing the role of the Institute in the UK with a specific emphasis on the challenges relating to appraising high cost and highly specialised technologies.  The Chilean delegation, led by Marianela Castillo,  Health Economic Advisor and Coordinator of the National Commission on Health Technology Assessment at the Ministry of Health, also delivered a presentation on the evolution of HTA in Chile and the role of explicit priority setting based on evidence. She also highlighted the implications of the recent law Ricarte-Soto, which aims to provide financial protection in relation to high cost diagnostic interventions and treatments, as part of a general commitment to universal healthcare coverage.

The second day of the visit involved meetings at Kings College London, to discuss future work plans in relation to the project with team leads at the Division of Health and Social Care Research (Prof. Peter Littlejohns and Dr Katharina Kieslich). In addition, the delegates were provided with an introduction to the King’s Technology Evaluation Centre (KiTEC), and its role is assessing medical technologies such as devices, including its work with NICE.

This two-day workshop included participation from two observers from the China National Health Development Research Center (CNHDRC), Beijing, China who were visiting NICE as part of a short placement to support our ongoing engagement with CNHDRC.

The full agenda and presentations are available below:

Agenda – visit to NICE and KCL

Slides – Overview NICE

Slides – Highly Specialised Technologies

Slides – Technology Appraisal and Stakeholder Engagement (1)

Slides – Technology Appraisal and Stakeholder Engagement (2)

Slides – NICE Citizens Council

Slides – Chilean delegation

Slides – Kings College London