Whitehouse Communications delivers sustained public affairs campaigns for MedTech and continence sector clients, from individual businesses to trade associations and patient advocacy groups. Working with policymakers, regulators and officials at the MedTech Directorate of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the firm has helped establish the principle that NHS purchasing should be based on value to patients and whole system costs, rather than item price alone.
The challenge
The MedTech sector operates in a unique and highly regulated marketplace, with the National Health Service (NHS) as its single largest customer. Whitehouse Communications works across the full spectrum of the sector, from individual MedTech businesses to trade associations and patient advocacy groups, with a particular depth of experience in the continence sector.
Even where regulatory compliance is achieved, securing product take-up and delivering value-based procurement can be difficult. NHS purchasing has traditionally focused on item price rather than overall value to patients and whole system costs, and MedTech companies face a wider environment of suspicion of the private sector. For continence products in particular, this means the cheapest product is often preferred over the most appropriate, with knock-on costs for patient outcomes, laundry, staff time and unplanned hospital admissions.
Our approach
Whitehouse Communications maintains a constructive dialogue between the MedTech and continence sectors and the policymakers and regulators who shape their operating environment. The consistent message is that patients have a right to access the most appropriate medical devices and products for their needs, and clinicians have a right to provide them.
The work focuses on:
- Building sustained relationships with government ministers, wider policymakers and regulators, keeping the patient pathway and experience central to policy, regulation and practice.
- Creating alliances of patient advocacy groups to champion the case that patient quality of life and health outcomes should not be compromised by narrow purchasing decisions focused on the cheapest, rather than the most appropriate, product.
- Making the whole-system economic case for value-based procurement, showing how the right products can, in the continence sector, reduce urine and faecal leaks, laundry costs, skin infections and ulcers, patient falls, urinary tract infections, unplanned hospital admissions, and staff time and injuries.
- Engaging directly with officials at the MedTech Directorate of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), embedding value-based principles in policy and regulatory decisions.
The outcome
Over several decades of sustained engagement, Whitehouse Communications has established with officials at the MedTech Directorate of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) the principle that NHS purchasing policies should be based on value to patients and whole health and care system costs, rather than item price alone.
The firm is now working to embed these principles in consistent practice among the purchasing managers who make day-to-day product selection decisions across NHS trusts and social care.
