Industry funding of patients' support groups

Editor—As the British umbrella organisation representing the interests of all people with skin diseases and their patients' groups, the Skin Care Campaign welcomed the balanced approach taken by Herxheimer in his article on the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and patients' organisations.¹ However, we contest the argument that industry will if nothing else influence policy if it directly or indirectly funds a large part of the budget.

Resources are made available to the Skin Care Campaign by many organisations, including voluntary groups, and by professional organisations, including the British Association of Dermatologists, British Dermatological Nursing Group, Primary Care Dermatology Society, and Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Most funding is received from a substantial number of companies—a funding consortium—which manufacture products of value to people with skin diseases.

We and those who fund us are absolutely clear about our policy that funds are donated with “no strings” for the Skin Care Campaign's campaigning and educational work. An independent board of directors made up entirely of patient representatives decides our agenda. We believe that we exemplify a successful formula that has real integrity and works well. Undoubtedly the Department of Health, with which we enjoy a close working relationship, would not consult with us in the way that it does if there was any question about our integrity.

Understandably, people often suppose that patients' support groups necessarily surrender their independence if their income derives chiefly from one sector. In truth, patients, clinicians, and the healthcare industries all have remarkably similar objectives, albeit for rather different reasons. We would welcome greater recognition of the value of partnerships between industry and patients, especially in the continuing absence of government core funding for patient support groups.