RPSGB Says Patients Need Better Access To Medicines Under NHS

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 12 Nov 2008 - 2:00 PST

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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) today called for a reduction in the need for NHS top-ups by giving patients better access to medicines. While the RPSGB welcomes the government's decision to clarify regulations about patients buying medicines privately while also receiving NHS treatment (4 November), it has stressed the need for greater emphasis on the access and affordability of medicines.

RPSGB President Steve Churton said: "The need for top-ups should be minimised as far as possible. Top-ups should be the exception, not the rule. The emphasis of this argument must be on improving access to medicines for NHS patients.

"We agree with the Richards Report that NICE's (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) processes for assessing new medicines need to be speeded up, although there are risks with this, especially where there are insufficient published data on which to base the assessment.

"The Society would like to see the improvement of local decision-making processes for funding exceptional prescribing in order to provide prompt, consistent, robust and transparent decisions.

"Patients also need to be better informed about the medicines available to them, through access to unbiased information, so that they can make the best possible choices about their personal treatment. However, measures should be put in place to protect vulnerable patients from misleading claims. Pharmacists will play a key role in advising patients and helping them access trustworthy sources of information in these situations."

Notes

The Society's Council agreed the following principles at its meeting on Thursday 6 November:

1. The need for top-ups should be minimised as far as possible: the focus should be on improving access to effective medicines for NHS patients. Top-ups should therefore be the exception, not the rule

2. A number of measures could help to achieve this, including:

- Risk and cost-sharing schemes with the pharmaceutical industry
- Value or performance-based pricing agreements with industry
(These measures could be included in the new PPRS. RPSGB is collecting examples of such schemes)
- Improvements to NICE procedures (including Phase IV clinical trials of new drugs in use, which will generate the data NICE needs to make quicker, but robust, decisions on cost-effectiveness)
- Improving the prediction of who will benefit from expensive new medicines through patient stratification and the development of biomarkers - the RPSGB is commissioning work in this area

3. There will still be circumstances in which medicines are not available under the NHS, or only in restricted circumstances such as clinical trials, so there will be a need to provide unbiased, accessible information on these medicines for any patients who might be considering whether to access them privately. Measures to protect the public from misleading claims are also needed

4. Pharmacists will play a key role in advising patients and helping them access trustworthy sources of information in these situations

5. Local decision-making processes on funding exceptional prescribing and off label drugs* need to be improved to provide prompt, consistent, robust and transparent decisions

The Society will be formally responding to the Richards Report consultations on improving access to safe medicines for NHS patients.

*Off label prescribing is where a medicine is used for a condition or in a manner that it has not been licensed for. This is a common practice in some specialities such as paediatrics where few medicines are licensed for use in children.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain