New plans announced by NICE aim to increase the speed at which patients gain access to the latest guidelines and most effective treatments.

NICE's five-year strategy focuses on a more proactive engagement with industry earlier in the innovation pathway to ensure faster access to new treatments. This will be achieved through establishing key partnerships to expand organisational skills and capacity, and renew and develop collaborations to track adoption of improvements and patient safety.

NICE Chief Executive, Professor Gillian Leng C.B.E., says "our work to produce rapid COVID-19 guidelines during the pandemic has hastened our desire for change. We demonstrated that we can be flexible and fleet of foot, without losing the rigour of our work, and we will now look to embed that approach in our day-to-day work".