Disclosure UK website gives “illusion of transparency,” says Goldacre
BMJ 2016; 354 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i3760 (Published 06 July 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;354:i3760Read all the latest BMJ articles on Disclosure UK and view the linked infographics here.
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There will always be some who will find ways of wriggling out of being transparent . It is encouraging that the payment of 'fees' will be an obligation enforced by some companies at last - but one way of avoiding honest genuine transparency is by making payments of signicant amounts of undeclared money , in the form of 'expenses' by some private and voluntary organisations working in the NHS and using NHS funds.
How are users of services themselves going to be able to check whether advice given is impartial and not simply have to rely on what may be not always totally acceptable decisions by the CCGs? Very few will be aware of the issues being raised by TheBMJ and others. Eventually Will it be the responsibility of the public to check a register - which probably most will be unaware of anyway? Will workers, including Health and Allied staff have an obligation to include such information on the practice leaflet/website for example? Should there be separate registers for different categories? It is not only doctors who have self interests but the focus is on them which obscures what goes on elsewhere.
Competing interests: No competing interests
I have never liked this, from my 'patient perspective', at all:
'Doctors in clinical commissioning groups, for example, often commission health services from private companies they themselves own.'
From my sometimes unreliable memory, there are some rules for CCGs which imply that the GPs who own such a private company, should be 'kept at arms length' when the CCG considers whether to purchase services from such a company. But those safeguards never seemed strong enough to me: I have an instinctive dislike of any GPs within a CCG, being the owners of companies the CCG is buying services from. And if that 'often' is true, then my dislike of this situation is strengthened compared to when I originally looked at the rules for CCGs.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Disclosure UK website gives “illusion of transparency,” says Goldacre
In the recent article in the BMJ by Ben Goldacre - Disclosure UK website gives “illusion of transparency,” says Goldacre – he criticises partial transparency of the Disclosure UK database. This is the first step on a journey to publish payments by the pharmaceutical industry so that patients can see the partnerships between companies and health professionals. Under UK law, health professionals are able to opt out of disclosing data of this nature, but to those who have not disclosed we would urge them to think again. As Mr Goldacre said to the Daily Telegraph last week, “a financial conflict of interest does not necessarily mean that somebody is up to no good”. We wholeheartedly agree and hope that doctors, nurses and pharmacists will feel empowered to talk about the important work they do with our industry to bring life-changing new medicines to NHS patients. Since the launch we have had many helpful conversations about how to encourage health professionals to disclose payments in the future and we are looking forward to working with others, like NHS England, to progress this. The ABPI has spoken at length about the live database – which is changing on a daily basis - to hundreds of interested parties, including Mr Goldacre, and we are more than happy to continue doing so. We extend an invite to him to come and meet with us to discuss Disclosure UK and discuss the future of transparency in our industry.
Mike Thompson, CEO, ABPI
Competing interests: No competing interests