Press Releases and Articles

Statement delivered by CPME president Dr Daniel Mart to the Pharmaceutical Forum. Brussels, 29/09/2006

CPME Press Release                                                                   Brussels, 29.09.2006

Statement delivered by CPME president Dr Daniel Mart to the Pharmaceutical Forum

Commissioners, Ministers, Members of the European Parliament, let me start by saying that the Standing Committee of European Doctors is gladly involved in the activities we discuss today!

Concerning relative Effectiveness.  CPME considers this subject is mainly an issue of transparency, quality assurance and patients’ rights! Tools need to be developed to facilitate the choice of the right medication at the right moment for each individual patient. And I mean individual!  We have to keep in mind that a discussion about ‘the patient’ or ‘patients’ is not taking this individuality into account.

Relative effectiveness needs to be seen in the context both of ‘clinical effectiveness’ and ‘cost effectiveness’ but also in the context of professional autonomy! Physicians need to be able to deviate from guidelines and of course in case they do, they should be prepared to justify those deviations.

We think that the issue of Pricing and Reimbursement is directly linked to what I just mentioned. The lead theme should always be what is the best medication for the individual patient in a given situation. A careful balance between scientific and evidence-based medicine and considerations of financial sustainability has to be found. But of course we can learn from each other. This means that exchange of data on pricing and reimbursement between member states should be encouraged and co-ordinated. This also regards results from research.  On this issue we would like to emphasise the importance of transparency and information including availability of data about clinical research at all stages.

Let me conclude on the issue of Patient Information.

CPME would like to emphasise that doctors welcome the well informed patient but that they have major problems with a misinformed patient!

This means we as doctors have a direct interest in helping to guarantee the conditions to produce validated high quality information.

However the question is: information on what?

Reading the documents I noticed that the emphasis regarding information has shifted from information on pharmaceuticals to information on diseases. I would think that providing quality information on pharmaceuticals in itself is already worth a pilot!

But if it is decided that information should be on diseases and the diabetes pilot is a good example for this, it is important to realise that information is not the same concept as knowledge and therefore it needs to be decided:

• Is it sufficient to ‘just’ explain the disease?
• Is it necessary to include explanations on how to treat a disease?
• Are ethno/cultural differences being considered?
• What different levels of information do we want and for which target groups?
• And finally, who informs?

As all this is quite a challenge and one CPME is more than willing to be an active partner!

All CPME Policy documents are available at: http://www.cpme.eu/policy.php

For more information, contact:

Secretary General, Lisette TIDDENS-ENGWIRDA               

CPME Secretariat:              Tel.: +32 2 732 72 02

                                          Fax: +32 2 732 73 44

                                          e-mail: secretariat @cpme.be

For more information about CPME, consult our website: http://www.cpme.eu

The Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME), representing about 2 million doctors through the National Medical Associations of the European Union / European Economic Area, aims to promote the highest standards of medical training and medical practice in order to achieve the highest quality of health care for all citizens of Europe.