Disclosure UK is a searchable online database of payments and benefits in kind made by the pharma industry working in partnership with UK healthcare professionals (HCPs) and organisations (HCOs).
Launched in June 2016 by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), Disclosure is the first database of its kind in the UK. It is part of a broader Europe-wide initiative aimed at bringing greater transparency to industry collaborations with health professionals.
Six months after it released details of payments made by 109 pharmaceutical companies during 2015, research organisation RAND Europe has analysed a snapshot of the data from January 2017 to identify any changes in the data.
Their analysis shows that the originally estimated rate of healthcare professionals willing to disclose payments and benefits in kind is in fact lower than first thought.
At launch, it was estimated that around 70% of the HCPs receiving a payment from industry in 2015 gave their consent to publish details on this. However, this figure is actually around 55%.
RAND Europe’s analysis has highlighted differences between companies in how they recorded information relating to the percentage of HCPs that did not give their consent to publish details of payments.
Jon Sussex, Chief Economist at RAND Europe, said: “There were differences in how individual companies had interpreted the data request, which led to inconsistencies in the dataset.”
Mike Thompson, CEO of ABPI, added: “We will continue to work with the NHS in the light of their new conflicts of interest guidance which advocates disclosing on our database.”
“In the meantime, we are working with our European colleagues to ensure that there are fewer possibilities for data inconsistencies in the future.”
