According to the Department of Health, the new guidance has been designed to provide advice on how primary care trusts, pharmaceutical companies and clinicians can work side by side to design novel solutions to meet the medical needs in a particular community, as well as inform NHS staff of their main responsibilities when working with the industry, with a strong emphasis on accountability and openness.
The requirement for guidance on industry-NHS joint working came out of the Long-term Leadership Strategy – a joint initiative between the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and Department of Health (DH), according to Martin Anderson, ABPI Director of NHS Policy and Partnerships, The ABPI is working closely with the DH to develop a toolkit for use by the NHS and industry to support joint working and include information on positive examples, which is due to be launched in March, 2008.
Dawn Primarolo, Health Minister, UK, 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.”