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Patient advocacy

Patient advocacy groups provide their members with support and information on how to live with their disease, represent patient views and lobby on issues affecting patients’ interests. They are an important stakeholder for GSK and we engage with them as part of our aim to be a patient-focused company.

Our annual Patient Advocacy Leadership Summit (PALS) is one of the ways we do this. The summit includes a forum for patient groups to learn more about GSK and tell us how we can better support their work. There are a range of workshops for attendees including sessions on media training and sharing best practice. Throughout the summit attendees receive information on GSK patient programmes, such as our Orange card or disease management programmes.

In 2004, PALS was extended from the US to include patient groups worldwide. Over 400 people attended from 23 countries. Attendees represented 233 different advocacy organisations including those dedicated to mental health, HIV/AIDS, respiratory diseases, epilepsy, cancer, bone and joint diseases and diabetes.

Feedback from the event was very positive. For example 90% of attendees from Europe felt the event had been either an excellent or a good investment of their time. It also highlighted the key priorities for patients – more R&D, better information about their disease and access to the best available treatment.

GSK has a dedicated Global Advocacy Team which contributes to planning PALS and co-ordinates our interaction with patient groups. We have developed a code of conduct to guide our work with patient groups and a Patient Advocacy Manual of best practice for employees. This work is part of a company-wide effort. Other initiatives include ‘Focus on the Patient’ in R&D (see Focus on the Patient for more information).

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