Professor Michael Barry:

The model of this committee is very much alongside the national cancer control, programme. When we do our assessments, for example, not only do we send our report to the HSE, we also send it to the national cancer control programme technology review group. That allows other stakeholders, especially clinicians with expertise in the area, to comment and to highlight unmet need or other areas that may not come out on a technology assessment. It is envisaged that the rare diseases technology review group or committee would behave in a similar manner. That would allow various stakeholders such as patients, patient groups, carers and clinicians to have a say in the process. We accept that ideally this would be done for everything.