NHS in England Underwent Profound Changes on April 1, 2013, According to FirstWord

18 Jun 2013 • by Natalie Aster

On April 1, 2013, the NHS in England underwent profound changes in an attempt to introduce a new culture where clinicians and patients are the new stars, where competition is mandatory, where everything rests on patient outcomes and where collaboration and innovation are encouraged at the highest levels of command.

The result is an extraordinary opening up of the health service to pharma companies for not just their money but also their commercial and leadership expertise. The pharma personnel that are best positioned to take advantage of this change in culture are the key account managers but they cannot work in isolation. Collaborative long-term relationships need to be formed, not just by individuals who can leave a company, but by organisations and via a cross-functional team approach. Key account managers need support to identify solutions that will help local health economies realise their objectives and the autonomy to see them through. They also need to learn the language of the new organisations as the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are very different culturally from their predecessors, the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).

The opportunities are boundless, particularly in service redesigns where inefficiencies are well recognised and small changes can make a huge difference to patients. Companies such as Pfizer and Janssen, as well as third party concerns are developing generic tested solutions that can be applied across therapeutic areas in keeping with nationally developed outcomes strategies.

But in the rush to penetrate the infrastructure of NHS England, outcome measures that are pertinent to pharma are largely unformed; most companies are content simply to demonstrate their credentials in helping their paymasters achieve their objectives along the parallel pathways of patient-centricity and improving health outcomes for patients.

The companies that do well are aware that while the architects of NHS England welcome pharma’s money and expertise, those at ground level are much more sceptical. Success comes from focussing on building trust and on knowing in some detail the local lie of the land, the people who make the decisions, the structures within which they must work and their capacity for innovation and collaboration.

The “Value-based Key Account Management and the NHS - Ensuring Optimal Performance Under New Rules” report by FirstWord tries to present a picture of the new NHS as it operates in England. It is one that is enormously exciting as old boundaries and ways of working are likely to be cast aside.

Report Details:

Value-based Key Account Management and the NHS - Ensuring Optimal Performance Under New Rules
Published: June, 2013
Pages: 69
Price: US$ 1,995.00

But it is also one that continues to change rapidly. The new commissioners have enormous challenges and they want very much to work with pharma companies but on their terms. In time, those terms will change. Whether they change in pharma’s favour depends on how much trust can be built between the two sides in delivering the improved outcomes for patients that everyone wants.

More information can be found in the report “Value-based Key Account Management and the NHS - Ensuring Optimal Performance Under New Rules” by FirstWord.

To order the report or ask for sample pages contact [email protected]

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