What does the NHS really want?
I'm at the eyeforpharma Responding to NHS Change conference taking place in London which brings together pharma industry, the NHS and private healthcare to discuss the changes in the UK healthcare env
By on Jul 1, 2008I'm at the eyeforpharma Responding to NHS Change conference taking place in London which brings together pharma industry, the NHS and private healthcare to discuss the changes in the UK healthcare environment and how pharma should be reacting.
One of the presentations which generated quite a numebr of questions was from Mike Farrar, Chief Executive of the North West Strategic Health Authority. Mike talked about how he sees pharma and the NHS working together - broadly speaking he said it should be looked at like any other B2B partnership where common goals are shared. The three purposes he believed pharma and the NHS shared were public protection, social value and market performance and as long as these are transparent and shared with both parties, the partnership would be on it's way to succeeding. Mike is clearly forward thinking in his approach and a couple of pharma delegates asked how they could get their SHA's to think like he does!
I wonder however how transparent pharma can actually be given the ABPI code of conduct and whether what actually comes out of any proposal from pharma to PCT or SHAs is a washed down version of what they actually want to achieve.
What I believe also hinders progress in industry-NHS partnership is a clear understanding of what the NHS actually wants. It is true, pharma hasn't been that great at understanding the customer and finding out what their key issues are, however does the NHS? At the conference I spoke to a senior-level pharma executive who said that they have been working with a PCT for a year or so now and despite more than a handful of meetings, several proposals and different people in his team taking charge, they are no further down the line when it comes to striking up a partnership. The only possible reason he can think of is that they don't really know what they want themselves.
The conference continues on this afternoon so I am looking forward to finding out whether anyone else shares the same views as me....