National Institute For Health and Clinical Excellence - Policy History

Policy History

The notion of an Institute to determine the clinical effectiveness of interventions first emerged at the end of John Major's Conservative Government as moves elsewhere were being made to set professionally agreed standards for clinical care. In 1996, the UK National Screening Committee had been established by Sir Kenneth Calman and Muir Gray (now Sir Muir Gray) by the Policy Team led by Dr Tim Riley and latterly Sir Charles Nightingale for the Department of Health. The NSC aimed to ensure that evidence based medicine informed policy making on what national screening programmes were approved for funding and what quality assurance mechanisms should be in place. This was a timely action as concerns over screening quality had emerged in breast cancer screening services came under question at Exeter in 1997 and followed in the wake of the 1995 Calman-Hine Report.

The idea of what was originally termed a National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness took root when Labour came to power having defeated John Major's Conservative Government in 1997. Frank Dobson became Secretary of State and was supported by a team of Ministers keen on introducing clinical and health outcome measures to achieve improvements in the quality and delivery of care. The team included Alan Milburn, Baroness Margaret Jay, and Tessa Jowell. The name and mission was agreed in a meeting between the Ministerial team, Dr Tim Riley and Dr Felicity Harvey shortly after the election and it was agreed that NICE should be described in the first policy white paper, The New NHS: Modern, Dependable 1997