Access to medicines – meeting the needs of patients

The position paper on Access to Medicines stresses the need for collaborative approaches across the supply chain to combat shortages and to ensure timely access to treatments. It highlights the crucial role of hospital pharmacists in optimising procurement based on clinical need and evidence, calls for enhanced coordination among Member States in areas such as pricing, reimbursement, and procurement, and advocates for patient interests and rights to be placed at the core of the Critical Medicines Act and of the ongoing revision of the pharmaceutical legislation. It also encourages the effective use of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Regulation to improve access, with greater input from healthcare professionals.

EAHP:

• Calls on all stakeholders in the supply chain to collaborate more effectively to address medicines and medical devices shortages for ensuring access to treatments.
• Recommends to policymakers and regulatory authorities to involve hospital pharmacists in procurement and distribution strategies, to ensure affordability through competitive systems, to create a fair, sustainable, and resilient framework for access to medicines avoiding discrimination among EU Member States and disadvantaged European regions.
• Calls for an increased coordination and solidarity between Member States on pricing, reimbursement, and procurement.
• Calls on policymakers to refine the revision of the general pharmaceutical legislation and to use it to ensure future access.
• Calls on policymakers to put patients’ rights and access to medicines at the core of the Critical Medicines Act.
• Recommends for the HTA Regulation to be used for the expansion of healthcare professional input in HTAs at both European and national level through a clear and predictable framework for clinical expert and patient involvements in JCAs and JSCs and the expertise of the hospital pharmacists in pharmacoeconomics and the assessment of medicines effectiveness be leveraged.

Read EAHP’s Position Paper on Access to Medicines HERE

Being unable to access quality care when needed is oftentimes categorised as having an unmet healthcare need. Another type of unmet need relates to an existing medicinal product that might not meet the specific demand of an individual patient and thus does not offer a major therapeutic advantage to him or her. Yet another condition that could be classified as unmet would be the lack of a satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. Based on these different types of unmet medical and healthcare needs it can be concluded that no uniform concept exists. Consequently, some needs of patients cannot be adequately addressed by hospital pharmacists. 

For the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) it is of utmost importance that a clear pathway to address unmet healthcare needs is devised. 

The unmet need definition proposed by the European Commission in its revision of the general pharmaceutical legislation is in the view of EAHP sufficient to fully address the entire problem in the EU. For EAHP  it would be important to not only focus on unmet medical needs but to widen the definition also to healthcare needs which are not always met equally in all Member States.

Read the EAHP Board opinion on Unmet Medical Healthcare needs HERE.