Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10233

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Whalen J.
Drug Makers Finance Nurses for U.K. Doctors
The Wall Street Journal 2007 May 30
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118048836503718043.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Abstract:

LONDON — Britain’s state-financed health-care system prides itself on providing care for all. But the system’s funding pinch is causing some doctors’ offices to rely on financial support from the pharmaceutical industry.

Drug companies are paying for nurses to study patient charts to identify people with chronic illnesses. The nurses, who come from nursing contractors, then recommend which patients should be called in for a check-up and perhaps prescribed new treatment — sometimes a medicine made by the company funding the nurses. The work is part of what the industry calls “disease-management programs,” which the companies say improve care for …