Transforming lives, improving health outcomes: tackling the true cost of variation in uptake of innovative medicines
Ensuring patients are able to access and benefit from innovative medicines – wherever they live in the UK. Joint NHS Confederation and ABPI report.
Download the report $Transforming Lives Improving Health Outcomes 524.7 kBKey points
- Innovative medicines transform individual patient lives as well as bringing significant benefits to the UK economy and to society as a whole – through greater patient and carer productivity, NHS productivity and more. It is estimated that the UK economy would achieve £17.9 billion additional productivity gains through the increased uptake of innovative medicines. [1] For the NHS and the wider health and care system to survive and thrive for the benefit of its users, innovation at every stage and in every aspect is not only desirable but necessary.
- Adoption of innovation is challenged by the fact that NHS leaders face ongoing operational pressures every day – asked to meet increasing demand, reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes within constrained resources, while also trying to re-imagine services transformed by a new focus on population health, enabled by partnership working and biomedical innovation.
- Rapid and consistent adoption of evidence-based, innovative medicines is a strategic opportunity for health systems. While medicines themselves have vital clinical benefits in individual treatment, they also have an important broader impact on patients, the NHS, society and the economy.
- However, despite the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the All-Wales Medicines Strategy Group approving new medicines for use by patients, there is significant geographical and sub-population variation in their usage, leading to millions of patients missing out on proven treatments that would make a huge difference to health outcomes, as well as a failure to realise economic benefits for the NHS and wider society. Figure 2 demonstrates just one example of a therapy area where significant variations in the uptake of innovations exists nationally.
- Improving appropriate uptake and reducing unwarranted variation in the use of innovative medicines presents an important opportunity for integrated care systems (ICSs) in England to achieve their aims not only of ensuring individuals receive the best care possible, but also of reducing health inequalities and supporting broader social and economic development.
- Understanding the barriers to uptake of innovative medicines, and identifying and sharing practical solutions system-wide, are vital to making progress both operationally and strategically. The overarching challenge is to ensure that all health and care system leaders position medicines as a strategic enabler of improved patient outcomes, NHS productivity and efficiencies across the system as well as a clinical intervention for individuals.
- Strategic partnerships between the NHS, patient organisations and industry are also essential in creating a thriving health and life sciences ecosystem that works for patients, society and the economy. Indeed, such partnerships play an important role in enabling the NHS to mature as an innovation partner across value chains and create the conditions required to ultimately tackle unwarranted variation in the uptake of innovative medicines.