The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is piloting a new innovative approach to the way digital products, devices, and diagnostics that most reflect system need and demand are assessed. This early value assessment (EVA) approach will allow a more rapid assessment to enable patients to benefit from promising technologies sooner. Involving patients in the health technology assessment (HTA) lifecycle is a core principle at NICE, but established methods are not suitable for a rapid timeframe. NICE needs to adapt the approach to ensure that patients are supported to participate in EVAs and that their involvement is meaningful.

Due to the rapid timeframe, it was important to ensure patient contributors were not overloaded with information and that contact points were aligned. NICE reviewed the standard induction, support documents, and contact points to adapt the support provided. This included:

• • updating recruitment documents to communicate the role of the committee and the EVA process;

• • combining induction meetings between various NICE teams and providing recorded presentations;

• • organizing earlier peer support with experienced lay members; and

• • advising which of NICE’s nine online modules were most relevant.

Support for patient contributors has been an important part of the HTA process, so enabling people to prepare and confidently deliver content at a committee meeting is vital. There has been some variation in the processes for different topics, but the feedback received from patient contributors indicated that their involvement was meaningful and valued. This was attributed to their close working relationship with the project team. NICE is collecting feedback from all patient contributors using an online survey. The findings of this survey and the evaluation of the support mechanisms will be presented.

Despite shorter timeframes, patient involvement has not been compromised. NICE will use the feedback from patient contributors to review and adapt the induction process and support offered. This will support patient contributors and enable NICE to allocate appropriate resources in the shortened timeframe.