Make a submission about a medicine - healthcare professionals

Submissions from clinical experts is an integral part of our assessment process. We also invite requests for medicines to be considered for AWMSG assessment. This section has the information and forms you need to make a submission to us.

Request a medicine to be considered for AWMSG assessment

We welcome suggestions from NHS Wales colleagues for medicines to be considered for assessment by the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG). The types of medicines that can be submitted for consideration include:

• Licensed medicines where no National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) or AWMSG advice exists or, if newly licensed, is not on the NICE work programme for assessment (or there will be a significant delay) or has been terminated by NICE.
• Licensed medicines that previously received a negative recommendation from NICE or AWMSG or a Statement of Advice from AWMSG, where new factors/clinical evidence have become available since the original advice which are likely to have a significant impact on the clinical effectiveness and/or the cost-effectiveness of the medicine
• Medicines being used outside of their product licence (‘off-label’) and there is no routinely available licensed medicine that will meet the patient’s needs.

For ALL medicine requests there must be a clearly identified clinical need or benefit to service delivery in NHS Wales. A commitment by practising clinicians/clinical networks to capture and collate patient outcome data may also be required.

Please complete the Medicines request form for healthcare professionals and return to awttc@wales.nhs.uk. Further information is given on the form about products outside the remit of AWMSG assessment and categories of medicines which are generally not assessed by AWMSG. 

More information about the AWMSG assessment process for licensed and off-label medicines is available from the AWTTC website at: https://awttc.nhs.wales/AWMSG-medicine-assessment-process  

Clinical expert opinion for medicine assessments

The views of clinical experts working in NHS Wales are an essential part of the AWMSG assessment process; both when a medicine is being considered for assessment and also as part of the assessment itself. Clinical experts will be asked to fill in a Clinical expert questionnaire and declarations of interest form to provide comment on current treatment options and any areas of unmet need, their knowledge of the medicine under consideration and how it may fit within the clinical pathway, any guidelines that influence treatment and how many patients may be eligible for treatment with the medicine. 

The All Wales Therapeutics and Toxicology Centre (AWTTC) will email out to invite clinical experts to submit their views. This may be by request to professional societies, clinical networks or medicines and therapeutics committees for nominations or directly to established contacts. If you haven't received a request from us but would like to submit your expert opinion on one of the medicines we're currently assessing or that is being considered for assessment (link to SP bit on work in progress page), we would welcome your contribution. Please either fill in the clinical expert questionnaire or contact us so we can tell you more.

Submit an IPFR application

If a patient and their clinician agree that a medicine that isn’t routinely available would benefit the patient, their clinician can submit an Individual Patient Funding Request (IPFR) asking the health board, or the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (NWJCC), to fund the medicine. Information on how to make an IPFR submission, either electronically or by downloading the IPFR submission form, and answers to some frequently-asked questions is available from this website at https://awttc.nhs.wales/ipfr-submissions