Explaining the findings ...
Three factors appear to dictate whether patient groups can influence access to medicines for their patient constituency ...
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The ability to create 'noise' in the media.
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The potency of the patient groups—notably, their business acumen, and their abilty to co-operate with one another (and act in a unfied way).
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The complexity of the country's system for the assessment and reimbursement of medicines (which can leave patient groups feeling overwhelmed).
A good relationship with government is not essential ...
Only 11 of the 45 HIV/AIDS patient groups participating in the study say that they believe government policymakers hold them in high regard (that is, feel that HIV/AIDS patient groups are fulfilling their brief, and meeting the needs of HIV/AIDS patients). The equivalent figure regarding government healthcare administrators is also only 13.
Why cancer patient groups perform poorly ...
A large proportion of cancer patient groups find access to medicines to be a problem: 41% of cancer patient groups in the 2014 benchmarking study say that accessing medicines is a major hurdle for them and for the people they represent. This figure of 41% is significantly higher than the 2012 equivalent, which was 28%. Clearly, many cancer patient groups feel unable in 2014 to negotiate better access to medicines, and incapable of influencing the government healthcare policies that reject the most-modern cancer therapies on cost grounds. Cancer patient groups are hindered by the fragmentation of the cancer sector of the patient movement, which dilutes the public messages and campaigns of the individual (sometimes competing) cancer patient groups.
Explaining the country-based findings ...
Patient groups in Germany, Italy and France are least concerned about gaining access to medicines. The three countries’ national healthcare systems have historically favoured liberal markets in the supply of drugs. Spanish patient groups, by contrast, are clearly overwhelmed by the factors that govern access to medicines in their country—the complex healthcare infrastructure; the healthcare reforms; and the urgent economic imperatives.
