To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the appropriateness of the Single Technology Appraisal process for rare diseases that do not meet the Highly Specialised Technology criteria.

All topics, including selected drugs for rare diseases, are considered through a rigorous topic selection process before formal referral to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to ensure that NICE guidance is appropriate and will add value. NICE assesses most significant new drugs through its technology appraisal programme through which it has been able to recommend a number of drugs licenced for the treatment of rare diseases for routine use on the National Health Service.