The Department of Health (DH) plans to crack down on NHS trusts that are "unfairly" delaying the implementation of Nice-approved medicines.

An "innovation scorecard" will be published on the NHS Information Centre website this autumn, enabling patients to see which trusts have adopted the latest Nice-approved drugs and treatments.

"NHS organisations must make sure the latest Nice-approved treatments are available in their area" Paul Burstow Department of Healh

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The DH stressed that newly recommended medicines would be available automatically for prescribing across all areas of the NHS, so there would be "no excuse" for failing to offer the treatments. The government will also set up a group to help speed up the "complicated" process of implementing Nice guidelines, by offering support and spreading best practice across local NHS organisations. The initiative would stop the "unfair practice" that led to regional variations in the availability of new medicines, the DH said. And it stressed that financial issues should not be a barrier to the uptake of innovative treatments.

"We are determined to eradicate variation and drive up standards for everyone," said health minister Paul Burstow. "NHS organisations must make sure the latest Nice-approved treatments are available in their area and, if they are not, then they will now be responsible for explaining why not."

The changes could put an end to "unwarranted", potentially financially motivated delays in making new treatments available, said Jonathan Mason, clinical advisor in medicines for NHS North East London and the City.

"I've been on prescribing committees where an individual clinician doesn't want to use a particular drug that's been given Nice approval for whatever reason," he told C+D. "They will say it's clinical freedom, but it may be sheer pig-headedness sometimes, I think."

But Mr Mason warned that pressure on funding could still lead to regional variations. "The difficulty comes where you are working with resource-limited allocations and you have to make decisions that mean you won't be able to fund something else," he said. "You have to make those decisions locally."

Last week, the DH announced that PCTs would be required to publish their local NHS formularies online, including Nice-approved drugs, from April 2013.