Pharmaceutical companies urged to have closer link with pharmacy
The manifesto looks at how industry should support patients, deliver
value for money and invest in future research |
Pharmaceutical companies need to work more closely with pharmacists and primary care trusts, according to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
Speaking last week at the launch of the association’s manifesto, “The
right medicine, the right patient, the right time” (PDF 2.7 MB),
Nigel Brooksby, president, said that patients were often confused about
how
they should
take their medicines and that the information provided when they were
given their medicines could be improved.
“We can work with pharmacists to make sure that they [pharmacists]
ask the right questions,” he added. “We can give the right
level of information, possibly not always to patients themselves, but
to their
families and carers and make sure that compliance is better to make sure
that patients do get better quicker.”
In addition, Richard Barker, director general of the ABPI, spoke about
the work the pharmaceutical industry is doing with PCTs.
The industry has tended, he said, to aim most of its resources at prescribers
of medicines. “I don’t think it has put enough resources
of the right kind and calibre into talking to the people who manage the
local health systems — PCTs and secondary care trusts,” he
argued. “We are beginning to … sit down as the ABPI with the
people in PCT management and talk about common problems, trying to make
ourselves part of the solution to their problems, rather than another
one of their budget concerns,” he added. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader