NHS officials took £70,000 drug company bribes, then ‘switched’ patients’ medication, court told

NHS officials who accepted £70,000 in bribes to promote prescription drugs visited GP surgeries to “switch” patients’ medication, a court has heard.

Paul Jerram and Dr David Turner have been accused of arriving at surgeries claiming to be on official business and changing a patient’s medication – a practice known as “switching”.

James Hines QC prosecuting, told a trial at Southampton Crown Court that the two men had used their positions with the medicine management team of Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and that if the doctors at the surgeries had known it was “not an official visit, they would have not allowed them to [make the changes]”.

“They were effectively using their position with the NHS to farm out the services of the medicine management team and they received money to do so,” the court was told.

Mr Hines QC said: “The prosecution case is that it is completely improper for an NHS professional secretly to promote a particular drug within the NHS to his fellow NHS healthcare professionals when he is in effect in the position of a paid influencer for the pharma company that manufactures that drug.

“That is what was happening on the Isle of Wight for some years.

“If it is your job within the NHS to review medication and drugs, and make recommendations or suggestions for alternative medicines to fellow NHS healthcare professionals, you are acting improperly if you secretly accept money from pharma companies, either directly or indirectly, to promote a particular medicine.

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Source: The Telegraph, 27 January 2022