Haringey spawns new NHS collaboration for Pfizer
pharmafile | November 17, 2005 | News story | |Â Â Â
Pfizer's high profile disease management project with Haringey Teaching PCT looks set to be declared a success – and has already spawned a new large-scale collaboration for the company with NHS Direct.
The joint project between Pfizer Health Solutions, the Department of Health and Haringey was first announced in March 2004 and has become one of the best-known industry-NHS joint projects.
The scheme was first proposed four years ago after a face to face meeting between Pfizer's chief executive Hank McKinnell and the then health secretary Alan Milburn, and has since been heralded as a glimpse into the future – both in terms of disease management and public-private partnerships.
Pfizer Health Solutions is a special division of the pharma company set up to pioneer disease management programmes in conjunction with healthcare systems. The company has already registered its first success in the US, where it has worked with Florida's state healthcare system.
The Haringey pilot scheme involves a team of specially trained coaches providing proactive 'information, education and motivation' to 600 patients with long-term conditions through a telephone-based service.
The coaching system aims to help the patients improve their self-care through changing their health behaviour and ultimately improve their health outcomes.
John Procter, head of UK Pfizer Health Solutions told delegates at a PM Society conference on NHS-pharma collaborations that the project would produce a wealth of clinical data to demonstrate the positive impact of the coaching programme.
Procter said Pfizer had insisted on gathering measurable clinical data, despite the fact that this increased the duration and cost of the programme.
"If you believe in this kind of work then you should be prepared to stand up and have it measured."
Results from the pilot project will not be published until early 2006, but the company has already forged a new, larger-scale partnership on the back of its success in Haringey.
North Birmingham PCT and its neighbour East Birmingham PCT are to collaborate with Pfizer Healthcare Solutions to deliver a similar coaching system using the health service's own telephone advice service, NHS Direct.
The programme will be for 2,000 patients in the Birmingham area and will be delivered by NHS Direct's own trained nurse staff.
The ABPI code bars pharmaceutical companies from being the direct employers of health coaches, so Pfizer's role will be to performance manage the programme on behalf of the PCTs.
Related feature:
NHS Trust – can pharma win it?
To win over a sceptical medical community pharma companies need to be open and ethical when developing healthcare partnerships with an overburdened NHS.
