ABPI launches manifesto to end prescription ‘postcode lottery’

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has launched a new manifesto on behalf of the research-based industry to improve the uptake of prescriptions of NICE-approved drugs.

The industry body states that the UK “lags behind” its European and global equivalents when it comes to prescribing new therapies for patients.

It points to statistics that show that dementia medicines are prescribed in the UK at a third of the rate of equivalent countries, while British patients are receiving major cancer drugs on prescription at less than two-thirds the rate of countries with similar healthcare standards.

In particular, during 2005 there was a 64 per cent take-up of new cancer medicines in the UK, while glitazone diabetes medicines have been used at 63 per cent of the rate seen in other similar countries for the three years after the drugs’ launch.

Nigel Brooksby, the ABPI’s president, commented: “Healthcare and medicines are all about patients and, in the UK, they are not getting modern medicines as quickly as they should and often not getting them even when NICE has said they should.”

He added that the association’s new manifesto – available on its website – is an expression of the pharmaceutical industry’s determination to remove the current postcode lottery and ensure fairness in prescribing.

A 2004 survey from Abacus International found that many guidelines implemented by NICE were not implemented properly, while some charity claimed that the postcode lottery that NICE’s inception was supposed to solve was still prevalent, according to BBC News.