Il lavoro considera la repressione dei pagamenti Big Pharma ai medici del SSN
Labour considers crackdown on big pharma payments to NHS doctors
di ThatchersDirtyTaint
Il lavoro considera la repressione dei pagamenti Big Pharma ai medici del SSN
Labour considers crackdown on big pharma payments to NHS doctors
di ThatchersDirtyTaint
6 commenti
Excellent. Certain medication, like resorting to antidepressants, is way too easily prescribed and doesn’t always appear to be in the patient’s interest.
And next do payments to political parties for lobbying 😊
£1 million over 3 years? So like next to nothing.
The rules on pharma payments to medics are strict. Used to be commonplace to get taken out to dinners etc. Now those days are over and the best one can hope for is they bring pizza or sandwiches when they come to give a presentation, which is hardly improper…
They also seem to be including covering conference costs / paying prominent speakers to give presentations in the figures, which is slightly silly.
Tbh I’d say the tiny numbers here are pretty re-assuring that pharma companies aren’t trying to financially sway clinicians in the way they used to.
What big payments? The uk pharma industry is already heavily regulated. Sounds like a Trump sound bite
> The NHS faces a crackdown on payments from pharmaceutical companies after The i Paper revealed that mental health medics have accepted nearly £1m from firms since 2021.
I am genuinely shocked that the amount is that small. £1m across four years, in a sector of the NHS worth £12bn per year?([ref](https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/mental-health-360-funding-costs)).
> For example, a consultant psychiatrist may be paid by a pharmaceutical company to speak at a medical conference in order to educate others or share research, and the NHS allows medics to do this in addition to their job in the health service.
Most NHS trusts are cutting funding that allows staff to go to conferences. Getting a supplier to pay for your ticket can make the difference between attending or not. And remember that CPD is mandatory for continuing professional registration for many professions. So long as you cite your conflict of interests on Slide 1, this is fine to me.
By all means, introduce better reporting of payments. But of all the problems in the NHS, this doesn’t feel like a significant one.
£1 million over 3 years in terms of payments to go to conferences that otherwise some of these doctors wouldn’t go to is hardly a bribe. The fees and travel (especially to the US can cost upwards of 10k, is the nah going to pay that)
The intention is to not get them to prescribe their drugs, but to build relationships so when there is a clinical trial for example you can approach that physician and he/she would be keen to get involved (I.e. relationship building).
As for bribing these doctors, that’s a stretch. The overwhelming majority of these patients are on generics that cost a handful of £’s. Expensive, drugs that don’t work, would not be reimbursed by NICE anyway so there would be no value. What a non article trying to paint this as the opioid epidemic in the US