Clause 22 - Meetings, Hospitality and Sponsorship

The provision of hospitality is limited to refreshments/subsistence (meals and drinks), accommodation, genuine registration fees and the payment of reasonable travel costs which a company may provide to sponsor a delegate to attend a meeting. The payment of travel expenses and the like for persons accompanying the delegate is not permitted. Funding must not be offered or provided to compensate merely for the time spent by health professionals in attending meetings. The payment of reasonable honoraria and reimbursement of out of pocket expenses, including travel, for speakers, advisory board members and the providers of other professional services, is permissible. The arrangements for meetings must comply with Clause 22.1 with regard to hospitality and venues.

Companies should only offer or provide economy air travel to delegates sponsored to attend meetings. Delegates may organise and pay at their own expense the genuine cost of an upgrade. For flights that are scheduled to take longer than six hours companies may pay for an upgrade from economy to premium economy or similar.

Pharmaceutical companies may appropriately hold or sponsor a wide range of meetings. These range from small lunchtime audio-visual presentations in a group practice, hospital meetings and meetings at postgraduate education centres, advisory board meetings, visits to research and manufacturing facilites, planning, training and investigator meetings for clinical trials and non-interventional studies, launch meetings for new products, management training courses, patient support group meetings and satellite symposia through to large international meetings organised by independent bodies with sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies.

With any meeting, certain basic principles apply:

• the meeting must have a clear educational content
• the venue must be appropriate and conducive to the main purpose of the meeting; lavish, extravagant or deluxe venues must not be used, companies must not sponsor or organise entertainment (such as sporting or leisure events) and companies should avoid using venues that are renowned for their entertainment facilities
• the subsistence associated with the meeting must be secondary to the nature of the meeting, must be appropriate and not out of proportion to the occasion
• any hospitality provided must not extend to a spouse or other such person unless that person is a health professional or other relevant decision maker and qualifies as a proper delegate or participant at the meeting in their own right
• spouses and other accompanying persons, unless qualified as above, may not attend the actual meeting and may not receive any associated hospitality at the company’s expense; the entire costs which their presence involves are the responsibility of those they accompany.

Administrative staff may be invited to meetings where appropriate. For example, receptionists might be invited to a meeting in a general practice when the subject matter related to practice administration.

A useful criterion in determining whether the arrangements for any meeting are acceptable is to apply the question ‘would you and your company be willing to have these arrangements generally known?’ The impression that is created by the arrangements for any meeting must always be kept in mind.

Meetings organised for groups of doctors, other health professionals and/or for other relevant decsion makers etc. which are wholly or mainly of a social or sporting nature are unacceptable.

Meetings organised by pharmaceutical companies which involve UK health professionals at venues outside the UK are not necessarily unacceptable. There have, however, to be valid and cogent reasons for holding meetings at such venues. These are that most of the invitees are from outside the UK and, given their countries of origin, it makes greater logistical sense to hold the meeting outside the UK or, given the location of the relevant resource or expertise that is the object or subject matter of the meeting, it makes greater logistical sense to hold the meeting outside the UK. As with meetings held in the UK, in determining whether such a meeting is acceptable or not, consideration must also be given to the educational programme, overall cost, facilities offered by the venue, nature of the audience, subsistence provided and the like. As with any meeting it should be the programme that attracts delegates and not the associated hospitality or venue.

Promotional material which is displayed or provided at international meetings held outside the UK may, unless prohibited or otherwise regulated by local laws and regulations, refer to medicines or their indications which are not registered in the country where the event takes place, or which are registered under different conditions, so long as any such material is accompanied by a suitable statement indicating countries where the product is registered and making clear that the product is not registered locally. Any such promotional material which refers to the prescribing information authorized in a country or countries where the medicine is registered must be accompanied by an explanatory statement indicating that registration conditions differ internationally.

The requirements relating to international meetings held in the UK are set out in the supplementary information to Clause 3.

The requirements of the Code do not apply to the provision of hospitality other than to that referred to in Clauses 22.1 and 27.2 and the supplementary information to Clauses 23 and 26.2.

Companies should remind their affiliates outside the UK that the ABPI Code of Practice must be complied with if UK health professionals attend meetings which they organise regardless of whether such meetings occur in the UK or abroad.

Pharmaceutical companies must ensure that all meetings which are planned are checked to see that they comply with the Code. Companies must have a written document that sets out their policies on meetings and hospitality and the associated allowable expenditure. In addition, meetings which involve travel outside the UK must be formally certified as set out in Clause 14.2.

The General Medical Council is the regulatory body for doctors and is responsible for giving guidance on standards of professional conduct and on medical ethics. In its guidance, the GMC advises that ‘You must not allow any interests you may have to affect the way you prescribe for, treat, refer or commission services for patients’ and ‘You must not ask for or accept – from patients, colleagues or others – any inducement, gift or hospitality that may affect or be seen to affect the way you prescribe for, treat or refer patients or commission services for patients. You must not offer these inducements’.

The General Pharmaceutical Council is the regulatory body for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. The Council’s Standards of conduct, ethics and performance state ‘Do not ask for or accept gifts, rewards or hospitality that may affect, or be seen to affect, your professional judgement’.

The Code of the Nursing & Midwifery Council, Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives, states ‘You must not abuse your privileged position for your own ends’ and ‘You must ensure that your professional judgement is not influenced by any commercial considerations’.

The provisions of this and all other relevant clauses in the Code apply equally to meetings and courses organised or sponsored by pharmaceutical companies which are continuing professional development (CPD) approved. The fact that a meeting or course has CPD approval does not mean that the arrangements are automatically acceptable under the Code. The relevant provisions of the Code and, in particular, those relating to hospitality, must be observed.

The maximum of £75 plus VAT and gratuities is appropriate only in very exceptional circumstances, such as a dinner at a residential meeting for senior consultants or a dinner at a learned society conference with substantial educational content. The cost of a meal (including drinks) should normally be well below this figure. The requirements relating to hospitality in Clause 22.1 and its supplementary information still apply.

The maximum of £75 plus VAT and gratuities (or local equivalent) does not apply when a meeting is held outside the UK in a european country where the national association is a member of EFPIA and thus covered by EFPIA Codes. In such circumstances the limits in the host country code would apply. Information can be found at www.EFPIA.eu.

This provision does not preclude the payment of room rental to postgraduate medical centres and the like.

Payment of room rental to doctors or groups of doctors or to other prescribers is not permissible even if such payment is made to equipment funds or patients’ comforts funds and the like or to charities or companies.

Attention is drawn to Clause 9.10 which requires that all material relating to medicines and their uses, whether promotional or not, which is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company must clearly indicate that it has been sponsored by that company.

It should be noted that where companies are involved in the sponsorship and/or distribution of reports on meetings or symposia etc, these reports may constitute promotional material and thus be fully subject to the requirements of the Code.

Disclosure of this information must be carried out in accordance with Clause 24.

Meetings at which attendance is sponsored by companies must also comply with Clause 22.1.

The information required by Clause 22.5 must be publicly disclosed in respect of sponsorship for attendance at meetings held in 2015 and each calendar year thereafter.

The information which must be disclosed comprises registration fees and the costs of accommodation and travel, both inside and outside the UK. The name of each recipient and the cost of the sponsorship of that recipient must be given.

Where a transfer of value is made to a health professional indirectly via a healthcare organisation such a transfer should be disclosed once only, preferably as being a transfer to the health professional.