Associate feature: Collaboration key for re-start agenda

After an election campaign where restart and recovery took centre stage, it’s now up to the new Scottish Government to deliver on pledges made during the campaign trail. For all the differences between Scotland’s main political parties, the need to ensure the NHS gets back to full capacity unites them all.

For patients and the NHS, this means delivering on the promise to not only restart care and clinical trials but to accelerate access to treatment for all conditions including cancer, where waiting times were already compromised. The pharmaceutical industry believes that the Scottish Government has a unique opportunity to re-shape care by placing a new focus on collaboration.

When we talk about collaboration, it’s about ensuring that all parts of the system work together to deliver results for both patients and the life sciences sector, which in turn creates even more benefit for patients.

We can do this through more productive use of healthcare data. During the pandemic, data and digital solutions have provided vital lessons for the NHS. In helping facilitate research, plan treatments, and beam consultations into patient homes, digital solutions have been at the heart of NHS progress. Therefore, it is crucial that the new Scottish Government develops and funds a healthcare data strategy to not only improve the data landscape but equip nurses and doctors with the latest digital technology to implement change.

The past year has shown the importance of a strong and vibrant pharmaceutical industry to our collective health and wealth. The new government has the opportunity to anchor this sector, and its 15,250 jobs, in Scotland.

A thriving life sciences sector has the potential to cure many more ills and working together will provide the blueprint for Scotland to transform, not only its health, but its prosperity. We hope the new government agrees.

Alison Culpan is the director of ABPI Scotland.