The Risk Sharing Scheme

In an appraisal of the use of Disease Modifying Drugs (DMDs), the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) considered that these treatments did not represent a cost effective use of NHS resources because of their very high cost relative to the benefit received by patients on average.

However, because some patients experience great benefit from disease modifying drugs, they invited the Department of Health and the National Assembly for Wales to consider what could be done to enable the medicines to be provided to patients on the NHS in a manner that could be considered to be cost effective. The result was the issuing of Health Service Circular 2002/004 in February 2002.

The Health Service Circular lays out an agreement between the Department of Health, National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Executive and Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety with the manufacturers for the supply of the DMDs on the NHS. This agreement created what is known as the 'Risk Sharing Scheme'. In this agreement the manufacturers have agreed that their product will deliver certain outcomes and if these outcomes are not delivered the price that the NHS pays will fall, hence the risk sharing.

As part of the process some of the people receiving DMDs will be monitored by Sheffield University, and their progress analysed. The recruitment to this research group is nearing completion but everyone appropriate who wants to go on DMDs will continue to have access to them on the NHS in consultation with their neurologist