Ref: NICE 2000/040 Issued: 19 October 2000

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) today announced the additional standing members of its technology Appraisal Committee, (Appendix 1).

The Appraisal Committee is chaired by Professor David Barnett and the Vice Chair is Professor Andrew Stevens. The committee has been established to advise the Board of the Institute on:

1. the use, within the NHS, of any new or established health technology in relation to its clinical and cost effectiveness taking into account the interests of the service as a whole.

2. other matters about which the Board may, from time to time, seek guidance.

Chairman of NICE, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins welcomed the new appointments: "Our Appraisal Committee is a unique body. This combination of patient advocates, NHS professionals, academic experts and industry representatives, who are brought together to work on a national basis, provide both the Institute and the NHS with an invaluable resource".

Chief Executive Andrew Dillon said "the Appraisal Committee plays a critical role in the development of the institute's guidance and we look forward to working with the new members. This expansion in membership reflects the previously announced increase in the number of technology appraisals to around 50 per year".

Ends

Notes for editors:

1. The Committee's standing members are appointed for three years.

2. The existing members of the committee are published on the Institute's web site.

3. Full details of the Institute's appraisal process (including a diagrammatic representation) can be found on the NICE web site. (www.nice.org.uk). In summary the Institute commissions an independent review of the published literature by the NHS Research and Development Programme. At the same time it invites submissions from the relevant manufacturers and organisations representing patients, as well as healthcare professionals with expertise in the field. This evidence is submitted to the Appraisal Committee. The Appraisal Committee holds the first of two meetings to which it invites technology-specific 'experts for the day'. These 'experts' include healthcare professionals and the representatives of patient/carer organisations and they bring valuable first hand knowledge to the Committee's work, following this first meeting the committee produces it Provisional Appraisal Determination (PAD) which is circulated to those who submitted information for consultation. The Appraisal Committee considers the feedback from the consultation the original evidence at its second meeting, when it produces its Final Appraisal Determination (FAD). This FAD is the basis of the Institute's Final draft guidance, which is circulated to the same groups who then have the opportunity to appeal.

4. The Committee will meet twice a month for a day at a time. It will deal with around four appraisals at each meeting, some for the first time (leading to the preparation of a provisional appraisal determination) and some returning for final determination. The membership of the committee will be split between these two meetings with the Chair, Vice-Chair and a small membership attending both. The same members will appraise a technology for both its provisional and final determinations.

APPENDIX 1 : ADDITIONAL STANDING MEMBERS OF TECHNOLOGY APPRAISAL COMMITTEE

Dr Jane Adam MB BS, MRCP, FRCR
Jane Adam qualified from The Middlesex Hospital Medical School in 1977. In 1983 she was appointed as consultant radiologist to St. George's Hospital, London. Dr Adam has wide ranging clinical interests within radiology, including Computerised Tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, oncological and paediatric imaging. Her research activities demonstrate a particular interest in radiation protection issues. She is a former Postgraduate Education Adviser and has served as an elected member of the Education Board of the Royal College of Radiologists. She is founding editor of CME Radiology and Continuing Medical Education editor of the European Journal of Radiology. Dr. Adam is an examiner for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists and Chairman of the Royal College of Radiologists Clinical Radiology Audit Subcommittee.

Dr Sunil Angris BM, BS
Sunil Angris is a General Practice principal and Vice-chairman of Staffordshires Moorlands PCG. He is a Member of the General Practice sub-committee of the BMA and of ESAT and MET (both advisory committees of the DoH dealing with emergency services/winter planning in the NHS).

Professor Carol Black MD, FRCP, F Med Sci
Carol Black is Professor of Rheumatology and Medical Director the Royal Free Hospital. She is also currently the Clinical Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians. Her major research interests include both clinical and basic research into connective tissue disorders, especially Scleroderma. She is a member of the Association of Physicians, a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Vice-Chairman of the Clinical Interest Group at the Wellcome Trust.

Professor John Brazier PhD, MSc, BA
John Brazier is Professor of Health Economics and Director of the Sheffield Health Economics Group in the School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield. His main interests have been in the measurement and valuation of health related quality of life and economic evaluation. He is actively involved in the design, analysis and interpretation of economic evaluations conducted alongside clinical trials and modelling.

Professor Bruce Campbell MS FRCP FRCS
Bruce Campbell is a Consultant Vascular and General Surgeon at the Royal Devon and Exeter Healthcare Trust, Chairman of Clinical Audit Committee for Exeter, Chairman of the Health Technology Assessment Therapeutics Procedures Panel and member of Editorial Boards of the Brit Jnl Surg & Ann R Coll Surg Engl. He was formerly member of the Regional Research and Development Committee and the Chairman of Regional Development and Evaluation Committee.

Dr Terry Feest MD, FRCP
Terry Feest is a Consultant Renal Physician and Clinical Director at The Richard Bright Renal Unit, Southmead Hospital, Bristol and Honorary Professor of Clinical Nephrology at the University of Bristol. He is presently Chairman of the UK Renal Registry and UK representative to the International Federation of Renal Registries. He is a member of the Renal Association Executive and a Trustee of the Renal Association. He is also Chairman of the Southmead Trust Drug and Therapeutics Committee and a member of the Trust Research Strategy Group.

Professor Mike Campbell BA, PhD, CStat
Mike Campbell is Professor of Medical Statistics with an interest in Primary care at ScHARR, the school of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield. His career started with the MRC Pneumoconiosis Unit in South Wales, and he then spent 16 years at the medical school in Southampton. He has worked on problems in practically all areas of medical research, and been consulted widely by the pharmaceutical industry. He is a BMJ statistical referee and on the editorial Board of Statistics in Medicine. He is a media contact for the Royal Statistical Society on health and disease.

Professor Jack Dowie Ph.D
Jack Dowie is a health economist and decision analyst, who recently took up the newly-created chair in Health Impact Analysis at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, leaving The Open University, where he had designed and run multi-media courses on Risk and Professional Judgement and Decision Making. His current work is on the development of user-friendly computer models which can raise the analytical level of decision making and policy formation in relation to health, both in the clinical setting of the doctor-patient consultation, and the wider context of health and non-health sector policies, programmes and projects.

Dr Paul Ewings PhD
Paul Ewings has worked for the NHS for 16 years, currently the Head of the Somerset Research & Development Support Unit (based in the Taunton & Somerset NHS Trust) and an honorary research fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol. He has a PhD in statistics and experience in a range of health services research, clinical trials and epidemiology. He has researched and taught critical appraisal skills. He is a member of the NHS SW R&D project funding committee and the SW Multi-centre Research Ethics Committee. He referees for the HTA programme, the BMJ and Quality in Health Care.

Ms Sally Gooch BA, RN, RHV, MSc
Sally Gooch is a Registered Nurse and Health Visitor with extensive experience of working with urban communities. She currently works in an unusual joint appointment between a community and mental health trust in Northamptonshire and its local university college as Nurse Director and Head of Nursing Development. From November she will be Director of Nursing at Mid Essex Hospital Services Trust, one of the largest acute trusts in Eastern Region. She was a member of the Council of the Royal College of Nursing for 8 years until 1995, the Crown Review on the Prescribing, Supply and Administration of Medicines. Sally continues in practice, as well as teaching, researching and developing policy.

Ms Liz Heyer MBA, BA (HONS), Dip HSM
Liz Heyer has been working in health service management for 26 years during which time she has had various posts. She is presently Chief Executive for Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust having been previously been Unit General Manager for mental health and learning disabilities at Harrow Health Authority and Chief Executive of Harrow Community Health Services NHS Trust and then Harrow and Hillingdon Healthcare NHS Trust.

Ms Ruth Lesirge
Ruth Lesirge is Director of the Mental Health Foundation. She is a Trustee of the Centre for Policy on Ageing and was Trustee of London Shape, which gives access to the arts for people with disabilities as well as being mentor to Chief Executives of several major national charities. She has previously been a visiting Lecturer (Adult Literacy) in Boston and New York universities and Honorary Lecturer in Medical Education at London University. She is also a Lecturer in Voluntary Sector Management diploma course, City University Business School, Trustee of Healthworks UK and has been Consultant/facilitator to the BMA and its GMSC and LMSC Committee events, Vice Chair of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and Chair of its Professional Development Committee.

Mr George Levvy
George Levvy is Chief Executive of the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the founding Chairman of the Patients involved in NICE (PIN) Group. The group brings together patient organisations with an interest in technologies being appraised by NICE and has enabled those organisations to engage directly with NICE about the appraisal process. George studied medicine at university and practised as a junior hospital doctor for five years, and then spent seven years in commercial management and marketing. He joined the voluntary sector in 1991 when he was appointed Head of Marketing & Communications at the British Red Cross and took up his present post in 1995. George is a trustee of the Haemophilia Society and was a member of the Executive Council of the Association of Medical Research Charities from 1996-2000. He is a member of the NHS Research & Development Funding Contact Group and the NHS Research Programme's Advisory Committee on New & Emerging Applications of Technology.

Dr Gill Morgan FRCP, FFPHM, DRCOG, FHSM
Gill qualified in Medicine from University College Hospital Medical School, London, in 1976. Following a number of hospital posts she trained in General Practice. Whilst training, Gill became interested in prevention and was impressed by the impact of social factors on health. This led directly to a move into Public Health Medicine, the speciality most involved in these issues. Most of her Public Health experience was in Leicestershire, a large multi-cultural county with significant social and health challenges. After a number of Consultant and managerial posts Gill became Director of Public Health for Leicestershire in 1990. In 1995, Gill moved to North and East Devon Health Authority as Chief Executive, one of only a handful of doctors in this role. North and East Devon pioneered locality commissioning and the Authority is particularly proud of this work. Gill was a member of the National Council for the Institute of Health Services Management between 1993 - 1998 and was Chairman in 1996-97 and President in 1997-98. She is a member of the NHS Confederation Council and has also been a member of a number of national working parties.

Professor Miranda Mugford D Phil
Miranda Mugford is Professor of Health Economics at the School of Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia. She is a health economist and health services researcher with special interest in methods used in economic evaluations, especially how methods for systematic review of literature can be incorporated into economic evaluation techniques. She co-ordinates a course in economic evaluation offered within the MSc in Health Science at UEA. She is a co-convenor of the Cochrane Collaboration Economics Methods Group. Miranda is currently involved in collaborative international, national and local research with many colleagues, on a range of health and social policy topics. Before 1997, she was economist at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. Since moving to UEA she has continued her work on perinatal health services, including the recently published 2 volume book 'Birth Counts' co-authored with Alison Macfarlane and others.

Ms Siân Richards BA (Hons), Dip HSM, AHSM
Siân Richards is General Manager of Cardiff Local Health Group, Trenewydd, covering a population of 320,000 residents and 203 GPs. Responsibilities include identification of health needs, planning and commissioning across primary, community and secondary care services; improving quality and provision; introducing clinical governance in primary care and leading the partnership agenda with other stakeholders in health. She joined the NHS as a graduate management trainee in 1985, and since then has worked in acute and psychiatric hospitals, at an all Wales, district health authority and locality level. Siân's career to date has embraced operational trust management, primary care, strategic planning and contracting, communications and organisational development. She has also been a responsible officer for a total purchasing pilot and was previously a member of the governing body of the University of Wales, College of Medicine.

Dr Rhiannon Rowsell MB BCh, MRCP, Dip Pharm Med, FFPM
Rhiannon Rowsell is Medical & Regulatory Affairs Director, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd. She held a number of appointments in hospital medicine before joining Beecham Pharmaceuticals UK as Medical Adviser. She has worked across a wide range of medical therapeutic areas in the pharmaceutical industry and held the appointments of Director, Clinical Investigation Anti-infectives R&D in SmithKline Beecham followed by Medical Director, Amersham International plc. She has been a member of various pharmaceutical industry committees, currently including the ABPI Medical Committee.

Dr Stephen Saltissi MBBS, MSc, MD, FRCP
Stephen Saltissi is a consultant Cardiologist and Head of Cardiology at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital (RLUH). He is a member of the Council of the British Society of Echocardiography and Chairman of the Liverpool Cardiac Rehabilitation Services. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Liverpool Medical School and has been Clinical Sub-Dean for the last 10 years. He has previously been Clinical Director of Medicine at RLUH and Broadgreen Hospital.

Professor Raymond Tallis FRCP, F Med Sci
Raymond Tallis has been Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a Consultant in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford Royal Hospitals Trust since 1987. He has a broad interest in health care in older people and is Consultant Advisor on Care of Older People to the Chief Medical Officer. His specialist research interests are stroke, epilepsy in old age and neurological rehabilitation. He established the Stroke Association's Therapy Research Unit in 1996. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000.

Professor Mary Watkins PhD
Professor Mary Watkins has 25 years experience in Nursing this year, having entered nursing immediately after leaving school. She holds qualifications in General and Mental Health Nursing and has conducted the majority of her clinical practice and teaching in the Mental Health fields. She holds a Masters and Doctorate in Nursing and her interests are supporting elderly people with Dementia and development educational programmes to meet the changing needs of Healthcare in the future. She is a Secretary of State appointment to the UKCC and is particularly interested in the changing roles of the UKCC and National Boards in relation to total Quality Assurance and Protection of the Public. Member of the UKCC Education Commission into pre-registration education 1998 to1999. She is a member of the Project Executive associated with the Peninsula Medical School to be established between the University of Plymouth and the University of Exeter.

Dr Norman Waugh MB ChB, FRCP (Glas, Edin), FFPHM, DA, MPH
Norman Waugh is senior lecturer in public health medicine/health technology assessment at the Wessex Institute for Health Research and Development, University of Southampton. He was previously in public health medicine in health authorities in the northeast of Scotland, in the usual activities of applied epidemiology and resource allocation. Has also been chairman of an ACAC, of the Scottish Study Group for the Care of the Young Diabetic and a member of SIGN. His clinical experience includes both hospital medicine and general practice. He has considerable experience in health technology assessment with SHPIC and the NCCHTA. His research interests are in diabetic epidemiology and HTA.

Dr Fay Wilson MB ChB, MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG
Fay Wilson has been a General Practitioner in Birmingham since 1985. She is currently a member of the BMA council, the BMA General Practice Committee, the GMC and its Health Committee. She is also secretary of the local BMA and regional LMC and a member of MTRAC and the West Midlands regional evaluation panel. She has been a local Health Authority non-executive director and Chairman of the LMC.