NICE International Review 2011

NICE focuses on the UK. But over the years NICE’s guidance and methods have generated substantial interest from researchers, non-governmental organisations, health insurance funds and ministries of health and finance across the globe.

NICE International was set up to respond to requests from around the world for help to improve evidence-based decisions about resource allocation in healthcare by improving systems, capacity and information-gathering. We do not attempt to replicate the UK model of healthcare or to transplant NICE into other countries’ healthcare systems. Instead, we offer our advice and support on a not-for-profit basis to help countries deliver clinical and cost effective healthcare to the people who live there.

We aim to achieve this respecting each country’s values and taking into account its disease burden, structure and resource constraints.

NICE’s guidance and its methods and processes are all public goods. NICE International stays true to the principles of sharing, openness and transparency. We help governments develop their own products and ways of working, adapted to their own healthcare systems, values, needs and priorities. We have forged strong working relationships with many fellow policy makers and funders in the UK and beyond, promoting the work of NICE and the British National Health Service (NHS), as well as bringing back knowledge from other healthcare systems.

In this, our first review, we reflect on some of the exciting projects we have undertaken over the past year and offer snapshots of earlier work. We believe that NICE International can build on another successful year and continue to help the increasing number of national governments who are committing themselves to providing universal health coverage in an efficient and affordable way.