Encouraging Research, Rewarding Innovation

With National Health Service debts set to hit one thousand, three hundred million and the Vicar of Downing Street suggesting that staff work through the night, presumably for free, while taking time off during the copious "quieter periods" which are the bane of every doctor's life, a report by the Office of Fair Trading gives optimistic evidence that the NHS is continuing to fulfil at least one of its primary functions; namely its duty of care towards the major pharmaceutical companies. Over a third of the NHS debt is the result of spending money on brand names and packaging, rather than generic drugs which, because they may cost as little as one-tenth the price of the real ones, could represent an imminent danger to vital research and development if the NHS were so spendthrift as to use them. The Department of Health Privatisation has responded to the report with characteristic forthrightness, saying that it would, of course, be jolly nice to have "fair prices which give value for money to the taxpayer", but that, nevertheless, "we recognise the importance of the pharmaceutical industry to healthcare and the development of medical advances". The shadow health privatisation spokesman agreed: a revised pricing scheme, as opposed to the current voluntary arrangement whereby drug companies can profit by up to almost thirty per cent on branded products, is "potentially welcome", but on the other hand there are "other vital objectives in promoting UK-based research and development, and exports". And let us not forget those NHS staff who, inspired by the Vicar of Downing Street's moral fervour, will be working through the night four nights a week. Surely, for the sake of health service consumer safety, we must maximise both alertness and morale by ensuring that medicines are labelled distinctively rather than generically and in bright, friendly colours chosen by the very best marketing personnel the drug companies can afford.