When I was a small boy, there were certain people placed on a list by my mother as “Boys you shouldn’t play with”. (Ten years later, she produced a similar list of girls, which, of course, made them much more interesting, but we’ll let that pass for now.)
The difficulty was that one of the boys sat next to me in the classroom, so I had to work with him from time to time. His reputation seemed undeserved to me, and we got along perfectly well.
This is very like the position that some parts of the NHS think they are in with the pharmaceutical industry – encouraged to pursue joint working, but very wary that they may come to rue having done so.
This is not made easier because any attempt on the part of NHS staff to understand the ABPI Code is thwarted by apparent differences in the companies’ application of it. Some of us at Pharmacy Management were just as baffled by the Code until we had training from Dr Rina Newton at CompliMed Ltd – and now we are jointly offering that training to others.
The content dictates that the group has to be fairly small – no more than 15 NHS and 15 industry delegates – in order that they can get the most from their day.
As you will see from the library section of this website, transparency and good governance are crucial to Pharmacy Management’s activities. We do everything we can to ensure that our meetings are fully compliant with the Code of Practice and that we make it as easy as we can for attendees to make appropriate disclosures. Come to the training and you’ll understand why we do some of the things we do – and don’t do.
Not only that, you’ll pick up some invaluable tips that will enable you to pursue joint working without any fear of improprieties in NHS-industry relationships.