The pharmaceutical industry should have involvement in the development and implementation of the National Service Frameworks for the National Health Service, the Government's pharmaceutical industry competiveness task force has decided.
The task force was set up by the Government and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (PJ, April 15, p598).
Reporting on its second meeting on July 14, the task force's joint chairmen Lord Hunt (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health) and Dr Tom McKillop (chief executive, Astra Zeneca Plc) said that "excellent progress" had been made in three areas.
Commenting on the involvement of pharmaceutical companies with NSFs, Lord Hunt said: "We need to work with the industry so that the NHS is more aware of the potential benefit from pharmaceutical developments in the pipeline, and the industry is in turn better informed about service needs in the NHS."
The two other areas where progress had been made were the subject of international intellectual property rights and the development of the European medicines licensing system, currently under review by the European Commission. The task force has established a subgroup to consider the latter subject.