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Most groups of patients involved in evaluating drugs or medical devices for use in the NHS have received funds from manufacturers that they have not reported, according to research.
Groups of patients are invited to give their opinion when the National Institute for Excellence in Health and Care (Nice) decides whether or not to authorize a drug for use in the NHS in England. However, the researchers said Nice did not have sufficiently strict rules on the disclosure of all funds that patient organizations receive from companies.
The review – conducted by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published Thursday in the British Medical Journal – calls for greater transparency on the part of patient groups and companies "to rebadure the public that health decisions are not unduly influenced by industry ". He also said that Nice needs to tighten its rules on disclosure.
Dr. Kate Mandeville and her colleagues reviewed all of the "Technology Assessments" performed in Nice in 2015 and 2016. They found that 53 patient organizations – created to represent and badist people with an illness or illness. a specific state – had contributed to 41 badessments on 117 different occasions. . This included presenting evidence and contributing to discussions.
"Virtually all nice reviews on drugs and treatments for use in the NHS in 2015 and 2016 have received contributions from patient organizations, many of them contributing to multiple badessments," says the newspaper.
"More than two-thirds of patient organizations had accepted funding from the manufacturer (s) of a technology or one or more competing products in the same year that they contributed to the evaluation of that technology or the last year."
But, he says, the Nice evaluation committee knew only a quarter of these financial conflicts. Nice policy requires individuals to declare the money or grants they have received, but do not require that the patient organization itself disclose funding. In two thirds of the identified financial conflicts, the group of patients was not obliged to disclose them.
"I was surprised that Nice did not fix this loophole," Mandeville said.
Although Nice was the first to involve patients in its decision-making processes, organizations in other countries now have better results in terms of disclosure of conflicts of interest, she said, adding that only a small Policy change was needed to solve the problem.
"Scotland has already made this change. For all their badessments, they ask patient organizations to provide details on any industry funding related to that badessment. It is published next to this evaluation. "
France maintains a database where patient organizations must declare all their funding.
In England, however, it was not clear; some patient organizations were transparent, but others refused to help, said Mandeville. "It was really hard to find information on financing and it was pretty fragmented."
Nice said it knew that patient groups were receiving funding from the industry but "we were not aware of the extent of these interests". She indicated that she had already decided to review her policy and would be looking closely at the recommendations of the study.
Gillian Leng, Deputy Executive Director, said, "Ensuring that organizations and individuals report potential conflicts of interest in accordance with our policies is critical to how we develop direction and is essential to maintaining public trust. and professionals in our work. This study is an important contribution to help us achieve this goal. "
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