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  • Question on Document

    Please indicate which stakeholder group listed most closely represents you:
    1. Industry (manufacturer of medicines, health technologies or equipment)
    2. Trade body / association
    3. Consultancy
    4. University / academic
    5. Government department
    6. Other public sector organisation
    7. Voluntary and community sector organisation
    8. Health or social care practitioner
    9. Member of the public
    10. Other (provide detail)
  • Question on Document

    Have we considered all the relevant evidence in preparation for adopting the EQ-5D-5L value set? Is our interpretation of the evidence appropriate?
  • Question on Document

    Are the changes to the NICE technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies guidance manual (PMG36) appropriate?
  • Question on Document

    Are the changes to the developing NICE guidelines manual (PMG20) appropriate?
  • Question on Document

    Is it clear when alternative methods for capturing health-related quality of life may be accepted, and what the preferred hierarchy is for selecting from the available alternatives?
  • Question on Document

    Beyond what is described in the equality and health inequality impact assessment, are there any aspects of the proposed changes that need particular consideration to ensure they do not result in unlawful discrimination against any group of people on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation?
  • Question on Document

    If you have any further comments in relation to the proposed changes set out in this consultation, please include them here.

3 Current approach in NICE manuals

3.1

The EQ-5D is NICE's preferred measure of health-related quality of life in adults, so that evaluations are consistent. We do not recommend specific measures of health-related quality of life in children and young people. NICE's guidelines manual and technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies guidance manual state that valuation studies for health-related quality of life instruments should be based on public preferences from a representative sample of the UK population using a choice-based method.

3.2

NICE's manuals support using either the EQ-5D-3L or the EQ-5D-5L descriptive system to collect health-related quality of life data in adults. But these dictate that 5L descriptive system data should be mapped onto the 3L value set to calculate utility values for reference-case analyses.

3.3

NICE does not recommend using the EQ‑5D‑5L value set for England published by Devlin et al. (2018a), because of concerns about the data and modelling approach raised during independent quality assurance by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research Unit for Economic methods of Evaluation in health and care interventions (EEPRU) (Hernández Alava et al. 2020). In a position statement on use of the EQ-5D-5L value set, NICE recommended doing a new valuation study, with stricter governance and quality assurance built in throughout. This study, reporting an EQ-5D-5L value set for the UK, has now been published (Rowen et al. 2026).