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Patients are directly affected and increasingly faced with avoidable accessibility and affordability issues. Besides the constraints faced by public health budgets, there are other barriers to treatment access. These include the growing problem of medicines shortages , delayed market access for new treatments in some European regions or increased out of pocket costs for patients. The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP's) Position Paper on Access to Medicines advocates for affordable medicines of good quality that are provided in a timely manner to patients. To achieve this goal barriers to treatment access need to be broken down and the uptake of enablers that promote and safeguard the access of patients to both new life-saving medicines and older, essential medicines must be increased.
Hospital Pharmacy - Meeting the Needs of Patients Hospital pharmacists across the world are working every day for their patients to ensure that they receive the medication they need to improve their health and to prevent and cure diseases. However, sometimes the medicine that is suited for an individual patient is not accessible. Growing healthcare expenditure has become a problem for many European countries. Innovative drugs, in particular, place an additional strain on already tight hospital budgets. Patients are directly affected and increasingly faced with avoidable accessibility and affordability issues. Besides the constraints faced by public health budgets, there are other barriers to treatment access. These include the growing problem of medicines shortages and delayed market access for new treatments in some European regions or increased out of pocket costs for patients. The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP's)
Barriers to treatment access
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Enablers to treatment access
Lack of purposeful procurement practices National pricing and reimbursement policy choices jeopardising patients' adequate access Medicine shortages Unavailability in certain markets, leading to inequity between Member States
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Health Technology Assessments (HTAs), including common reports at EU level Collaboration and best practice sharing on pricing and reimbursement Increasing the use of prevention measures Fostering innovation and research
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New Head of Pharmacology The Department of Pharmacology at University College Cork have announced Professor Christian Waeber as our new Head of Department, taking over the reins from Professor David Kerins who had a challenging year as Interim head of department during Covid. Prior to his appointment Professor Waeber joined University College Cork (UCC) in 2013 where he is now Professor of Pharmacology, a joint appointment between the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Pharmacology. Early in his career, Professor Waeber worked as a Ph.D. student at Novartis Basel. Professor Waeber then joined as a post-
doctoral fellow the laboratory of Joel Bockaert, at the “Centre CNRS-INSERM de PharmacologieEndocrinologie” in Montpellier. In 1993, Prof Waeber joined Harvard Medical School to characterize the pharmacological profile of 5-HT1like receptors inhibiting neurogenic inflammation, a research carried out in collaboration with Michael Moskowitz. His current research at UCC is focused on characterizing the role of the adaptive immune system is stroke recovery. Professor Waeber is looking forward to the challenge this new role presents, and all of us at the Department of Pharmacology wish him every success in his new role.
Pharma Managers Series – HSE Briefing Date: 4th November, 2021 We’re delighted to welcome HSE CEO, Paul Reid back to the PMI to give our members an update on where the HSE, the rollout of the vaccination programme and the impact of the pandemic on the healthcare budget. This event is proudly sponsored by AXIS Consulting.
OCTOBER - 2021 • HPN | HOSPITALPROFESSIONALNEWS.IE
