NHS-industry partnerships can support the NHS to make the government’s three big shifts

The ABPI’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, Brian Duggan, says that the case for partnerships is stronger than ever, and sharing what works must be a crucial part of delivering the NHS 10-Year Plan.

When Health Secretary Wes Streeting launched the national conversation on the future of the NHS, he said three big shifts were needed. The health service needs to go from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from treating sickness to prevention. We believe that NHS-industry partnerships have a crucial role in delivering these ambitions.

When we talk about partnership, we mean a genuine partnership where both the company and the NHS organisation contribute resources to work together towards a shared goal - improving patient care and supporting the performance of the NHS.

The evidence for partnerships  

A new report by The King’s Fund further reinforces the case for partnerships. It suggests that if we increase the scale and ambition of the partnerships we undertake with the NHS and others, we could help generate at least two of the three big shifts the Health Secretary wants to see.

The report looks at four inspiring examples of NHS-industry partnerships, all of which achieved fantastic results for patients. The King’s Fund is clear that getting these partnerships right should be a priority.

Success is not a given – good projects take time and effort, and they must have the right safeguards in place to meet the high standards set out in the ABPI’s Code of Practice. All partnership projects must be transparent, have written contracts in place, and have clear shared objectives. All outcomes and impacts must be published so that future projects can learn and build on what works.

When we get this right, the benefits are significant. One project the King’s Fund looked at was to eliminate Hepatitis C in people in contact with drug and alcohol services. The value of this project was clear from the quotes from the people involved.

As well as these personal testimonies about the positive impact of partnerships, there is also growing quantitative evidence for what they achieve for patients. Earlier this year, we commissioned Carnall Farrar to examine the benefits of partnerships from a statistical perspective – the first time anyone has analysed partnerships in that way.

The work found that hospitals engaging in industry partnerships are up to 2.5 times more likely to follow closer to NICE recommendations for prescribing clinically and cost-effective medicines more compared to hospitals that do not partner. Appropriate use of medicines closer to NICE guidelines was, in turn, associated with better outcomes for patients in the areas of care studied, keeping their conditions under better control.

Carnall Farrar also found emerging evidence that Primary Care Networks (PCNs) that undertook partnerships were associated with improved disease management, such as blood sugar and blood pressure control. Read more here.

The government’s shifts

So, how can partnerships help deliver the shifts the government wants to achieve? The most apparent examples lie in shift one – from hospital to community and shift three – from sickness to prevention. Let me take some examples.

From hospital to community

Novartis worked with Leeds Teaching Hospitals to improve care for people with rheumatoid arthritis. The project created an entirely new service - the first remote monitoring pathway in rheumatology in Leeds.

Alongside patients, the team developed a digital tool to help people with rheumatoid arthritis manage their condition. It also created a team to provide advice when needed, including rheumatology nurses and consultants.

The project has helped people struggling with rheumatoid arthritis to receive earlier care and improved capacity in clinics. Find out more on the Novartis website.

From treating sickness to prevention

There was an unmet clinical need in Hartlepool Health Primary Care Network (PCN) with a higher than national prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It was also ranked third highest for hospital admissions in England. 

A project between AstraZeneca and Hartlepool Health Primary Care Network therefore looked to fund time for COPD nurses to conduct high-quality COPD reviews and provide clinical supervision to upskill nurses in the PCN.

The project achieved improvements to COPD patient outcomes and prevented hospital admissions and resulted in improved patient experience by supporting people with education about their disease and social prescribing. Reductions in medicine wastage and sustainability resulted in cost savings, particularly through transitioning of patients from using multiple inhaled therapies to single-inhaled therapies. Find out more in the joint NHS Confederation/ABPI report here.

Achieving the shifts

COPD affects around three million people in the UK. (NICE) and around 450,000 adults have a recorded diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

These projects achieved remarkable results in their local areas. Imagine what we could achieve at the national level – a tangible move from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention. By putting the recommendations of The King’s Fund’s report into action, we look forward to helping the Health Secretary make it happen.

Read the guidance from the NHS Confederation and the ABPI on how to conduct successful partnerships here.