Catalysing progress: How an incoming government can seize the moment to drive healthy growth
Ben Lucas, Managing Director, UK & Ireland
| MSD
Ben Lucas, Managing Director of MSD in the UK, highlights how the pharmaceutical industry is ready to scale partnerships with the new government and the NHS: to tackle health inequalities and improve patient pathways. He explores opportunity spaces to focus on in the early days of a new administration.
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At this moment of political change in the UK, we – industry, government and the NHS – have an opportunity to decide how we act with shared focus and determination in order to achieve our common goal of serving the health needs of populations and patients, underpinned by investment-led growth that benefits society as a whole.
There is a burning platform for our new Secretaries of State, no doubt. I would reflect that there are some early priorities that we can meaningfully move ahead with at pace.
Strengthening vaccination coverage
The new government’s emphasis on prevention is welcome news. As one of the largest suppliers of vaccines to the NHS, MSD has long advocated co-ordinated action to address the years of decline in coverage rates for our National Immunisation Programme.
The global COVID-19 pandemic showed us what can be done when we harness data and leverage new ways of working to address threats to public health. And with the NHS recently publishing its own NHS Vaccination Strategy, there now exists an opportunity for us all to pull in the same direction.
Working in partnership, we can look to maintain a measles-free status, help to eliminate cervical cancer, and protect the NHS from cases of infectious disease. We stand ready to work with the government and public health teams to implement these objectives – and in so doing deliver the increased value to populations and the public purse.
Improving cancer pathways
Many patients in the NHS continue to experience long waits for their care, including in cancer where performance against waiting times standards has been in decline for many years. The new government has promised to meet this challenge head-on, committing to clearing the backlog in NHS elective waits within five years.
In cancer, where every week counts, MSD is already working up and down the country to speed up waiting times for treatment, collaborating directly with the NHS to streamline patient pathways and unlock capacity savings for stretched NHS services. We look forward to continuing this partnership with the support of the new government, which has been clear on the value of NHS-industry partnership.
Furthermore, we know that the importance of early diagnosis is rightly recognised within the NHS Long Term Plan, and we support commitments to increase the proportion of people who have their cancer diagnosed at an early stage.
Labour’s promise to double the number of CT and MRI scanners is welcome and should provide much-needed additional diagnostic capacity. We believe this positive action on diagnosis should be met with an equal focus on early treatment, supporting the system to treat cancer earlier when the chance of a good outcome is highest.
Alignment on implementing the health and growth agendas
In a mission-led government, it will be critical that the Health, Science and Business Departments work cohesively, viewing our sector holistically in unlocking growth, preventing ill health, improving outcomes, and supporting improved pathways for patients.
MSD is a leading life sciences investor and partner to the NHS. For more information, please visit www.msd-uk.com or contact Ben Lucas at ben.lucas@msd.com.
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