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| Sunday, 27 February 2005 10:37 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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AstraZeneca a leading pharmaceutical firm have been luring NHS nurses into luxury trips to four and five-star hotels to ensure that their products are used in the NHS.
Since nurses have gained the power to prescribe medicines to patients on the NHS they have been a target for many drug firms to persuade them to use their brand of products.
Liz Darlington, a nurse in the north of England, wrote a letter to the British Medical Journal, complaining about the targeting of her profession. “I am utterly amazed at the pharmaceutical environment that prevails in primary care and the volume of invites to ‘educational meetings’ with free lunches, trips to TV shows etc that have been put my way,” she wrote.
AstraZeneca said it goes to great lengths to ensure its educational programmes are within industry guidelines.
“When deciding on a meeting location, AstraZeneca selects the venue that can best facilitate a robust educational programme while keeping costs to a minimum,” it said.
A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said: “Every hotel is chosen for its convenience and facilities and the hospitality has to be secondary”.
Matt Griffiths, joint prescribing adviser for the Royal College of Nursing, recently told the health select committee there was evidence that nurses were influenced by drugs marketing. “But we try to ensure that our patient care is not compromised,” he said.
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1 comment on this story
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Would they rather the pharmaceutical companies just made an inordinate profit and didn't bother with the "freebies"?
So they don't trust their own judgement in choosing the right drugs for their patients? A far more concerning problem than the cash, I'd say.
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| 28 February 2005, 16:39 |
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