§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) on how many occasions last year drug companies provided hospitality and entertainment for doctors on National Health Service premises (a) during and (b) outside the doctors' working hours;
(2) what are the regulations governing the entertainment of National Health Service doctors by drug companies;
(3) what provisions in doctors' National Health Service contracts apply to trips such as that recently when National Health Service doctors were taken to Switzerland at the expense of drug companies; how many such doctors were taken during the latest available period and what was the duration of their stay; and what was the average loss of National Health Service practice time.
§ Mr. EnnalsIn accordance with the Voluntary Price Regulation Scheme expenditure on hospitality provided by pharmaceutical companies is included in the financial returns made to my Department as part of promotion expenditure. It is not given in detail sufficient to allow the extraction of the information requested. Expenditure on promotion is to be reduced from 14 per cent. to 10 per cent. of the industry's home sales by 1979 and under the proposed arrangements for effecting this reduction expenditure on hospitality will not be an allowable promotion cost except when incurred in support of medical symposia. Information on visits abroad by doctors at the invitation of pharmaceutical companies is not readily available and would take a disproportionate amount of time to obtain.
Arrangement for leave and other absences of doctors employed in the National Health Service must be approved by their employing authorities. Authorities have been advised by my Department about hospitality and invitations to company financed seminars in this country and abroad; the general rule is that staff should exercise the utmost discretion in accepting offers of hospitality from contractors or their representatives, or from other organisations or individuals concerned with the supply of goods or services. Where substantial expenditure is involved, the invitation should be 297W accepted only if the event in question is clearly of benefit to the service and the health authority itself is prepared to grant leave for this purpose and to meet the cost of travel and subsistence. These provisions do not apply to general practitioners: as independent contractors they are wholly responsible for their own conduct.