Working with Pharma to Advance NHS Health Equity Efforts

A key priority in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) Operational Planning Guidance 2023/2024 is improving health outcomes for the poorest 20% of patients in the nation. Partnerships between NHS systems and the pharmaceutical industry represent one way to help address health disparities. Doing so, however, requires understanding the problem at hand and acting precisely.

According to Oli Hudson, “The first element is to properly understand healthcare inequity – which regions and systems they are affecting, what the discrepancies in access and outcomes are for patients in your therapy area, and what the total system costs are for inaction? For example, poorer access to diagnosis services in cancer are connected with patients entering the system with later-stage tumours – which are more difficult to treat and require far more use of healthcare resources. What’s the likelihood of patients with inequality markers appearing at more advanced disease stages? You could explain the impact this will have on services and the impact of further undiagnosed and untreated waves.”

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(Source: PM Live, June 2^nd, 2023)