This has been a year of considerable significance for NICE. Against a backdrop of major policy reform, senior leadership transition and rapid technological change, the organisation has continued to advance its core purpose: to help health and care practitioners and commissioners to get the best care to people fast, while ensuring value for the taxpayer.
During this year, I was delighted to announce Professor Jonathan Benger as NICE’s new chief executive, succeeding Dr Sam Roberts. Jonathan will be well known to many of our partners, having joined NICE in January 2023 as chief medical officer and since holding roles of interim director of the Centre for Guidelines and deputy chief executive. He is widely respected, and his extensive frontline clinical and national policy experience make him well placed to lead our organisation through the next phase of its development. I am confident that under his outstanding leadership, NICE will continue to deliver on its commitments under the 10 Year Health Plan, the Life Sciences Sector Plan - and, most critically of all, the needs of clinicians, commissioners and patients.
Ending the postcode lottery for healthtech
NICE was originally established in 1999, in part, to address a perceived postcode lottery for medicines access in health and care. Many of the same challenges have long faced healthtech: inconsistent access across the country and unclear signals about which technologies offer the best value to the health system. The government has recognised the critical importance of healthtech to patient outcomes. It is therefore especially pleasing that, as part of the 10 Year Health Plan, NICE’s mandate has been broadened to encompass high-impact healthtech – after many years of discussion and debate.
Through close collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Office for Life Sciences, NICE has developed the National Healthtech Access Programme - a structured framework designed to bring clarity, consistency and rigour to the evaluation and adoption of selected high-impact healthtech. Crucially, the programme has a funding mandate that assures financial support for the commissioning of the technology, akin to that for medicines, removing one of the biggest barriers to adoption. In February 2026, we announced the first 2 topics to be assessed through the programme:
- capsule sponge tests for the detection of Barrett’s oesophagus and oesophageal cancer
- AI-assisted tools for identifying prostate and breast cancer.
Both technologies hold significant potential to transform early diagnosis for thousands of patients each year, while driving workforce efficiency and releasing capacity across the NHS.
Excerpt from the official page. The original is authoritative. Continue reading at UK NICE ↗