Today, along with the CEOs of the other 8 healthcare regulators, Trevor Patterson signed a Joint Statement containing advice for healthcare registrants on dealing with conflicts of interest.
The statement sets out how health professionals should be aware of actual or potential conflicts of interest and how they should act when either actual, potential or perceived conflicts arise.
The advice is supplemented with a Case Study, which helps explain how conflicts can arise and how they should be treated.
The key elements of the advice include;
- Putting the interests of people in their care before their own interests
- Maintaining appropriate personal and professional boundaries
- Refusing all but the most trivial gifts, favours or hospitality
- Ensuring that professional judgement is not compromised by personal, financial or commercial interests, incentives, targets or similar measures.
This advice should be read in conjunction with the Code of the Pharmaceutical Society of NI as published in February 2016.