Quarter 2 1999. Few can argue that the NHS is funded by a finite pot of 42 billion of taxpayers' money. Ministers hate to admit that this means care must be rationed and that the NHS can only provide a fixed amount.
All treatments are available, but some more readily so than others.
The above statement and those like them have become commonplace in today's press. No pharmaceutical company working in Europe is unaware of the vicissitudes associated with a monopsonistic tax-based healthcare system. A fundamental focus of the industry is to ensure that sound policy development takes place. This approach will help develop new ways of ensuring universal access for patients to the healthcare that their clinical needs dictate. It is the role of business to ensure that policy is not the sole preserve of politicians and while politicians of all ideologies readily sign up to the policy of universal access to healthcare, this is not the key issue.