We’re making some changes to how we evaluate medicines to help get new treatments to patients quicker. In this month's podcast, we hear from Jenniffer Prescott, programme director within NICE's Centre for Health Technology Evaluation and Victoria Jordan from The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry about our new approach.

On 10 July NHS England published proposals for establishing an antimicrobial products subscription model for products that offer exceptional value to patients and the NHS. This builds on a recent pilot project that we co-led which paid companies a fixed annual fee for antimicrobials based on their value to the NHS, rather than the volume used. We speak with Sophie Cooper, NICE's senior scientific adviser, and David Glover, NHS England's assistant director of medicines analysis.

We speak with Meindert Boysen, NICE's head of international affairs, and Dr Nicole Mittmann, vice president of scientific evidence, methodologies and resources at CADTH - Canada's drug and health technology agency. They discuss the global partnerships that are enabling NICE to remain at the forefront of guidance development methodology.

Following Mental Health Awareness Week, we hear about 4 NICE-approved digital technologies that can help children and young people with mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety or low mood. Our guests are Sarah Byron, NICE's programme director for devices, diagnostics and digital, and Lily Tang, deputy director of digital investment strategy at NHS England.

As part of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, we chat with 2 members of our colorectal cancer guideline committee. We're joined by Justin Davies, a consultant colorectal surgeon, and Julie Hepburn, a patient who has had colorectal cancer. They discuss the warning signs and symptoms, available treatments and their involvement in guideline development.

Chief executive Dr Sam Roberts outlines her priorities for NICE by National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

In this episode we discuss urinary tract infections (UTI's) and the publication of NICE' new quality standard. The guests are: Dr Tessa Lewis, a GP and specialist committee member on NICE's independent quality standards committee, and we speak to a patient about their experiences of dealing with recurrent UTIs in their early adulthood to find out what challenges they faced.

In this episode we discuss the role NICE plays in patient safety. The guests are: Professor Kevin Harris, senior responsible office for patient safety at NICE, and clinical advisor to the Interventional Procedures Programme and Professor Jane Blazeby, Professor of Surgery at University of Bristol.

Reducing health inequalities is part of NICE’s DNA. We offer evidence-based recommendations to help improve the health of communities.

The equitable implementation of NICE recommendations ensures that care provided is effective, makes efficient use of resources and reduces inequalities and unwarranted variation.

Taking part in this episode is NICE chief executive Dr Sam Roberts; was Dr Bola Owolabi, direcor of healthcare inequalities at NHS England; Dr Lesley Owen, a technical advisor at NICE; and Dr Aoife Molloy, a senior clinical advisor at the National Inequalities Improvement programme at NHS England.

Learn more about NICE's role in reducing health inequalities at: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/nice-and-health-inequalities

We speak to Consultant Respiratory Physician Dr Hitasha Rupani, Medicines Consultant Clinical Adviser at NICE Jonathan Underhill and asthma patient Sheba Joseph about NICE’s recently published patient decision aid on asthma inhalers and climate change. The aid supports people with asthma to consider whether they might be able to use inhalers which have a smaller carbon footprint as part of their treatment plan. You can view the patient decision aid by visiting the NICE website: https://bit.ly/3fnLt1K