Payments made to health care professionals by pharmaceutical companies to be published

Published: 05 April 2013

Payments made by pharmaceutical companies to nurses, doctors and other health professionals will be published from 2016 as part of an EU-wide initiative to make relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and health professionals more open and transparent. As a step towards this, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has today published an aggregate figure for payments made in 2012. No names are published today, but they will be from 2016 onwards. Today’s figures detail the amounts involved when pharmaceutical companies sponsor NHS staff to attend clinical education events, provide training and development, as well as fees paid for speaking engagements and participation in advisory boards.

The RCN is working with other royal colleges and health professional bodies to see whether a central database of such payments would be a practical means of ensuring transparency in the future. Current guidance on relationships between health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry is being revised in response to concerns that it is not fully accurate and evidence based.