AWTTC’s Horizon Scanning and Financial Forecasting team provides early intelligence on new medicines to support effective financial and service planning and timely access to treatments across the NHS in Wales.
The team gathers information on new medicines, new uses for existing medicines, and new formulations that are in development. We focus on those expected to be licensed and made routinely available in the UK in the current and next financial year. This information helps us to identify and understand what changes to services that health boards or trusts in Wales might need to make for these medicines to be offered to patients, if NICE or AWMSG recommend their routine use. Financial forecasting links with horizon scanning to assess the likely budget impact of new medicines, new uses of medicines, and new formulations before they enter routine use. The aim is to provide early estimates of costs, based on available evidence, to support local and national financial planning.
Information gathered by the team is also used to support the AWMSG Medicines Assessment Process for Licensed and Off-label Medicines. This includes identifying new medicines that NICE does not expect to assess but where there is a clear clinical need or other benefit to the NHS in Wales.
The Horizon Scanning and Financial Forecasting team uses a wide range of sources to collect information about new medicines, new uses of medicines, and new formulations. AWTTC supports and is fully engaged with the UK-wide horizon scanning database UK PharmaScan. All the UK's national horizon scanning organisations use UK PharmaScan and this is the team's primary source of information about medicines in development. We encourage companies to register with and use UK PharmaScan to make sure that the NHS in Wales can plan for the timely introduction of their medicines. You can find out more about UK PharmaScan, including how to register, on the UK PharmaScan website.
All information collected by the team is stored securely. The team use it to produce confidential horizon scanning reports for the NHS in Wales. AWTTC shares these reports, through a secure horizon scanning repository, with named individuals working in the NHS in Wales who are responsible for medicines financial and service planning. Access to AWTTC’s information requires a signed confidentiality agreement.
We work closely with a range of partners to build a robust, future-proof horizon scanning and financial forecasting service for Wales. New cancer medicines are discussed monthly at the Systemic Anti-Cancer Treatment Horizon Scanning Collaborative Group meetings, which include representatives from all health boards and cancer centres in Wales and colleagues from genomics and pathology. The group gives each medicine a service impact rating. Intelligence provided by the group is used by AWTTC’s Horizon Scanning and Financial Forecasting team to estimate the net budget impact of the new medicine. Work is underway to set up a similar process for non-cancer medicines.
Working with partners across Wales, we aim to streamline national processes to improve efficiency and enable timely access to new medicines, particularly those with complex delivery needs.
We use UK PharmaScan as our primary source for horizon scanning information; however, we also encourage early engagement from companies, especially for medicines expected to have a significant impact on budgets or services. Companies can contact the AWTTC Horizon Scanning and Financial Forecasting team by e‑mailing awttc@wales.nhs.uk. Commercially sensitive information can be shared with us through the AWTTC Vault, our secure file sharing portal.