New Patient Advisory Council to embed patient culture into industry’s strategy

The ABPI is seeking six senior leaders from across the patient charity sector to join a newly formed Patient Advisory Council that will advise the ABPI Board and ensure patient perspectives are further embedded into its strategic thinking.

The Patient Advisory Council will provide the ABPI Board and its Senior Executive Team with meaningful patient engagement to inform strategy, policy priorities and work plans across the association.

The Council will be made up of exceptional patient organisation leaders (chief executives or members of executive leadership teams) who will provide constructive input on key policy issues to the ABPI Board, which is made up of 18 general managers from the UK’s innovative pharmaceutical industry.

The launch of a new Patient Advisory Council delivers on the first commitment in the ABPI’s new Patient Engagement Strategy which was launched in June 2021. The ABPI says that it is looking for Council members to bring their own knowledge, experience, and views to ensure that decisions made by the Board will have patients front and centre.

Members will be encouraged to represent patient perspectives across policy topics relevant to both industry and patients, such as outcomes-focused healthcare, medicines pricing, patient engagement in health technology assessment (HTA), healthcare data and collaboration.

Topics will continue to evolve from issues and challenges arising in UK health and social care environment, including those that the Council proposes to be discussed.

Colette Goldrick, Executive Director of Strategy, Research & Partnerships at the ABPI said:

"The greatest advocates for what matters to patients are patients themselves; those living with a condition, sharing what really matters to them, their families, and their communities.

"We have been encouraged by the constructive engagement industry has had with the patient community over the last few years, through the various forums we have set up to capture patient opinions. Now, we want to take that further.

"We can’t make decisions which affect patients without their input. Our new Patient Advisory Council is designed to bring those views to full, frank, and open discussions at the highest levels of the UK pharmaceutical industry."

The search for new members to join the new Council comes ahead of the refreshed 2021 ABPI Code of Practice, which will set out core principles that acknowledge industry’s commitment to patients as central to its core purpose.

Appointments will last between 18 months–3 years, with the opportunity to explore an extension. The time commitment will be a minimum of 1 day and a maximum of 2 days per month.

The nature of PAC discussions at ABPI Board will be strictly non-promotional, in line with the requirements of the ABPI Code of Practice 2021, in particular clauses 25, 26 and 27.