Call for stronger national leadership to enable NHS partnerships with life sciences industry

Health and care researchers at The King’s Fund are calling for government and national NHS leaders to play a greater role in developing guidance and providing leadership of health service partnerships with the life sciences industry.

The UK has a large and thriving life sciences sector, but a new report published today (Monday 18 November) argues that the full potential of the sector to partner with the NHS and improve patient care is not being realised.

As well as collaborating with the NHS on research and providing it with goods and services, life sciences companies have a long history of partnership working with NHS organisations to help them make improvements to patient care.

This includes collaborative working projects that involve pharmaceutical companies and NHS organisations formally pooling skills, expertise and resources to deliver specific improvements to health services ^[1] . The NHS organisations can benefit from the skills, expertise and resources the companies bring, while the companies gain a better understanding of the NHS and the day-to-day challenges faced by clinicians, as well as potential commercial benefits if the project expands access to recommended treatments supplied by that company, within clinical guidelines.

New research was commissioned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and independently conducted by experts at The King’s Fund. The research team studied four examples of partnership working between the NHS and pharmaceutical companies to understand the value of partnerships with the life sciences industry and the approaches and guardrails needed to ensure partnerships operate ethically and transparently.

The report authors describe a health service in a ‘catch 22’ situation where intense pressure on the NHS leaves hard-pressed staff with little time or resources to make the changes that would improve patient care. The King’s Fund argues that, especially in this context, partnership working with partners in the life sciences industry provides a valuable option for bringing in additional resources and expertise to improve the quality of care.

Despite the potential benefits of partnership between life sciences companies and NHS services, the report authors uncovered several barriers that block greater collaboration. 

They found cultural differences and mistrust of the pharmaceutical industry can stand in the way of potential partnerships. The report concludes that while there are well-developed frameworks and existing guidance, industry bodies have played a far greater role in developing these than NHS bodies. The King’s Fund recommends this imbalance be redressed to create a genuine sense of co-ownership, which would help ensure transparency and build trust.

The report authors found that many partnerships develop through existing relationships between life sciences companies and NHS services, meaning opportunities for collaboration are not available equally to all NHS organisations. They also highlight that the pressures on the NHS leave health service staff with limited time and headspace to develop partnerships.

The King’s Fund has set out several recommendations to improve the approach to partnerships between NHS and industry, including:

• NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care should work with industry bodies to further develop collaborative working guidance, as well as making opportunities for partnership working more accessible

• local NHS leaders should support industry partnerships and identify where they could help deliver local NHS priorities

• industry leaders should help build trust by proactively communicating what companies get out of these partnerships, improving transparency mechanisms for disclosing partnership arrangements and working more closely with NHS bodies to develop co-owned guidance for this way of working.

Siva Anandaciva, Chief Analyst at The King’s Fund and co-author of the report, said:

‘Ministers often cite life sciences as a jewel in the crown of UK industry, but UK patients are not seeing the full benefits of having such global expertise on their doorstep.

‘Rigorously managed partnerships between the NHS and life sciences companies, delivered within clear guidance, have the potential to improve patient care. The resources, skills and capacity of industry can help pump-prime changes in the NHS that many patients want to see and staff want to deliver.

‘However, we found several barriers blocking the benefits of industry collaboration, including a common mistrust of partnerships with pharmaceutical firms, often based on a suspicion of their profit motives and historic experiences of their sales and marketing activity.

‘To overcome this scepticism and provide assurance about life sciences partnerships, national NHS leaders should work with industry to co-own joint guidance and robust approaches to joint working.

‘The government’s stated missions include building an NHS fit for the future and kick-starting economic growth. Both can be helped by enabling more partnerships between the NHS and life sciences sector. Through a more strategic national approach to partnerships, NHS leaders can capitalise on the contribution of life sciences companies to help deliver the government’s health mission.’

As well as making several recommendations for national and local health service leaders, the report from The King’s Fund outlines a series of principles to underpin successful, ethical and transparent NHS and life sciences partnerships.

Notes to editors

For further information, or to request an interview, please contact the Press and Public Affairs team on 020 7307 2585. 

The King's Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and care in England. We help to shape policy and practice through research and analysis; develop individuals, teams and organisations; promote understanding of the health and social care system; and bring people together to learn, share knowledge and debate. Our vision is that the best possible health and care is available to all. 

The four NHS and life sciences partnerships studied for the research were:

• improving outcomes for people with diabetes following acute coronary syndrome in Lincolnshire (with Boehringer Ingelheim).

• eliminating hepatitis C among people in contact with drug and alcohol services across the NHS Addictions Provider Alliance (with Gilead Sciences).

• improving asthma care in Greater Manchester (with AstraZeneca).

• improving the front-end skin cancer pathway in Lancashire and South Cumbria (with Sanofi).

About this research 

The work for this project was commissioned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). This output was independently developed, researched and written by The King’s Fund. The ABPI has not been involved in its development, research or creation and all views are The King’s Fund’s.