EU & Competition news

The Department of Health has published guidance to encourage the NHS to work jointly with the pharmaceutical industry to improve patient care.

The Department of Health guidance provides advice on how, for example, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), pharmaceutical companies and clinicians can work together to identify particular medical needs in a community.

The guidance will:

encourage NHS organisations and staff to work together to deliver high-quality healthcare; and

inform and advise NHS staff of their main responsibilities when working together with the pharmaceutical industry.

A number of PCTs have come up with innovative ways of working with pharmaceutical companies to help improve the services they provide to patients.

For example, East Lincolnshire PCT has worked with three companies to identify people with suspected Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), train clinicians to manage these patients and establish specific COPD clinics. The programme saw a 23 per cent fall in admission rates in COPD compared to single figure fall in neighbouring PCTs. Over a five month period, 78 out of 215 case-managed patients had acute episodes that were successfully managed at home with only one resulting in hospital admission. This clearly fits with patient expectation to have their care provided in the community.

Dawn Primarolo said:

"We know that joint working between the NHS and pharmaceutical industry can bring real benefits to patients so we want the NHS to work with them more to improve patient care.

"This best practice guidance demonstrates that patients really can get better care when the NHS and industry work together."

Judith Smith, respiratory nurse consultant, and Noel Kelly, a GPwSI in respiratory medicine, from East Lincolnshire PCT said:

"This guidance will help steer NHS organisations in developing transparent mature relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. Ultimately both the NHS and industry have a common shared goal in improving patient well being with effective treatments and services."

Richard Barker, director general of ABPI said:

"The pharmaceutical industry has a huge amount of expertise, not only in the modern, innovative medicines it has researched but also in the conditions they have been developed to treat. Increasingly, the importance of this knowledge being shared with our partners in the NHS for the benefit of patients is being recognised, and this guidance can only encourage the constructive use of such activity in the UK."

The Guidance on Joint Working between the NHS and pharmaceutical industry can be found at: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_082370

For more information, go to: http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=349611&NewsAreaID=2

This material first published by the LexisNexis Butterworths. All rights reserved.