The NHS officials paid, wined and dined on spa trip
HEALTH officials from across England attended a luxury trip hosted by a pharmaceutical company lobbying to get its products used by the NHS, The Daily Tel
egraph can reveal. A dozen senior staff attended the twoday meeting in Germany earlier this month after being invited by an NHS chief who was being paid thousands of pounds by several drug companies.
NHS delegates including Linda Honey, head of medicines management at North West Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG); Sue Mills, chief pharmacist at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust; and Vasundra Tailor, head of medicines management at Hillingdon CCG, were taken to BadenBaden. The trip details emerged at an undercover meeting with Paul Jerram, head of medicines management for the Isle of Wight’s CCG.
Mr Jerram was explaining to a potential client – in fact, an undercover Tele
graph reporter – that he had arranged for 12 NHS officials to attend an “advisory board” meeting in the spa town.
He said the event was “superb” and all the delegates came back with a “glow”.
“I get the same room every time, there’s a Jacuzzi in the middle of the room. It’s one of the top 10 hotels… It’s the Belle Epoque… Even the waste bin is gold-plated.” According to Mr Jerram, each delegate was paid £500 per day to attend, while he and another associate were paid £5,000 to organise the meeting. He claimed that all the guests switched to the pharmaceutical company’s products following the trip.
The itinerary included a visit to the manufacturers’ factory used by the company.
This newspaper has established that Stirling Anglian Pharmaceuticals was behind the trip. The firm said that the manufacturers paid for the hotel and dinner, although Stirling provided the £500-aday fees and flights.
A Stirling Anglian spokesman said the trip was “consistent with Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) guidance”, and it did “not recognise” Mr Jerram’s description of the hotel, restaurant or alcohol consumed.
Mr Jerram has been suspended by his CCG, pending an investigation. He said that his private work as a consultant did not conflict with his NHS role and all decisions made were to save money or for clinical reasons.
The Telegraph has established the identities of almost all of the attendees.
None denied they were paid to attend. However, all the individuals contacted, or their employers, said they had declared the trip or had strict policies to avoid any conflict of interest.
But the disclosures will heighten concerns about a potential conflict of inter- est between NHS staff and drugs companies. The undercover reporter asked Mr Jerram if his CCG prescribed a particular drug – a constipation product – made by the company that had paid for him and the other delegates to attend the conference. He confirmed it did, but said it would not have been able to “unless there was a good reason”.
Many of those who attended work for CCGs. They include Stuart Lakin, the head of medicines management at Rotherham CCG; Charlotte Earl, the Medicines Optimisation pharmacist at Luton CCG; Richard Sheldrake, from Newark and Sherwood CCG; Ey Cheung, from Herts Valleys CCG; Stuart Glaspole, a specialist interface pharmacist at Brighton and Hove CCG; and Naeed Hussain, from Surrey Downs CCG.
A representative of a private health company also attended. Mr Lakin and Mrs Mills said that they went to Germany in their “own time”. Mr Lakin, Mrs Mills, Mrs Cheung, North West Surrey CCG and Surrey Downs CCG said that no switches were made as a result of the meeting and decisions were made because drugs were cost-effective or benefited the patient.
Surrey Downs also said that Ms Hussain was not “party to any discussions or decisions relating to the company or its products”.
Hillingdon CCG said it was looking into “the circumstances of this advisory board meeting”. It said it only recommended drugs that were on a pre-approved list and no employee could make changes to the pre-approved list “without going through a formal process”.
Luton CCG said that it was already using the products made by the company before the trip and Ms Earl was not involved in the decision.
A spokesman for NHS Newark and Sherwood CCG said it had made “no changes to the local medicines formulary”.
Mr Glaspole and his CCG did not respond to questions.
The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which administers the ABPI code of practice, yesterday said it would be examining whether the trip had breached the rules. The code states that “lavish, extravagant or deluxe venues must not be used”.