Ireland

Patient organisations play a vital role in Irish health: as well as providing accurate information and support for patients in Ireland, they also act as representatives for patients and ensure their voices are heard and needs are understood.  Patient groups campaign for change on issues that affect the lives of patients and those that care for them.  Some also carry out vital research into the causes and potential treatments for specific conditions.

Why GSK supports patient organisations

We want to support patient groups to continue their great work. We believe we share common goals of wanting to help patients prevent, manage and treat diseases as well as helping make sure patients can access accurate and reliable information and can find support from a trusted group who understand what they are experiencing. We also believe it is important that the voice of the patient is a strong and active one in Irish healthcare and hope that our support helps ensure patient groups can communicate their needs and raise awareness on behalf of their members. 

In Ireland, we work with a wide range of patient organisations in disease areas such as asthma, COPD, HIV, meningitis and migraine.  We are proud to work with these organisations to better the outcomes for their members.  GSK and patient groups share a common concern that the healthcare system should focus on preventing, treating and managing disease, and that patients should have access to high quality medicines, services and information on their illness.

How we work with patient groups

How we support these groups is very important to us at GSK: Ensuring we are transparent about any support we provide and respecting the independence of the organisations are our guiding principles. For example, we always ensure that any contribution we make does not exceed more than a quarter of a group’s annual income. We are very clear there is no commercial influence attached to our decision making process around how we support any patient group nor would we ever ask for any commercial support in return. We want to build sustainable and trusted relationships in the best interest of the patient organisation over the long-term: we have worked with some of our patient groups for over 15 years.  

At GSK, we are proud supporters of independent and transparent medical education for healthcare professionals in Ireland.

What does this look like?

Outcome driven: We want to support education initiatives with clear, measurable outcomes so that the benefit to patients is measurable and demonstrable.

Patient Focused: We also want to concentrate on disease areas in which there is a genuine patient need and in which we have a mutual scientific interest.

Arms-length: We have no involvement or influence on the education development, logistics or participant selection.

Need: We focus our financial resource on programmes that have the greatest potential to enable people to do more, feel better and live longer

Why GSK supports medical education?

Supporting medical education has always and continues to be a very important part of what we do at GSK. The healthcare professionals who prescribe the medicines we develop are an integral part of a patient journey. Healthcare, particularly medicine, is an innovative and fast evolving area. We want to support healthcare professionals in ensuring they can access high quality, up to date medical education to help them make the best decisions for their patients.

Why independent?

At GSK, we have changed how we support HCPs: instead of directly funding healthcare professionals, we are finding new, more independent ways to do this. These changes do not affect our commitment to medical education but instead mean the decisions about ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘who’ are made by independent organisations and not by GSK. It is very important that this support exists, particularly in a healthcare system under severe resource constraints. But we believe it is equally important that this is done transparently and free from perceptions of any potential conflicts of interest. The combination of HCP and patient confidence in healthcare plays a critical role in how patients feel and how they respond to treatment so it is very important that these relationships are based on trust.

Timeframe?

We are not currently accepting applications. The next funding round will be announced in the coming months.

Any Further Assistance:

Email: irelandmedicaldepartment@gsk.com

Mail: Business Support Executive. GlaxoSmithKline Ireland Ltd, Citywest business Campus, 12 River Walk, Dublin 24.