Understanding and using patient experiences as evidence in healthcare priority setting.

Considering all relevant evidence gives each person an equal opportunity at having their treatment funded. Patient experience gives context to the clinical evidence and also directly informs our understanding of the nature of the condition and its effects, including patients' needs, how to meet them, and the burden of illness. Such evidence also serves to contextualise reported effects of the treatment. The requirement to include patient experience as evidence has important policy implications for bodies that make priority-setting decisions since it proposes that new types of evidence reviews are commissioned and considered.