Working together: Guidance to support transformative pharmaceutical industry partnerships with the NHS in Wales
New guidance jointly developed by the Welsh NHS Confederation and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. View an overview of the guidance.
Foreword
Across Wales, the potential of NHS and industry partnerships to transform health services and improve outcomes for patients has never been greater. A growing body of research confirms that where partnerships take place, they are associated with better health outcomes for patients, improve access to innovation, and create system-wide benefits. The evidence from Wales and beyond is clear: collaboration between the NHS and industry is not just transformational, it is essential.
We have seen this first-hand through the wealth of examples captured in the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s (ABPI’s) NHS–Industry Partnership Case Studies Library, which features projects from across all four nations of the UK, including many from Wales. These projects demonstrate the ‘triple win’ in action, delivering better outcomes for patients, strengthening NHS capacity and capability, and making responsible use of industry expertise and resources.
This new Welsh guidance is the product of a truly collaborative effort between the Welsh NHS Confederation and the ABPI. It draws together the experiences, insights and lessons from NHS leaders and industry partners into a single, practical resource designed to make partnership working easier, more transparent and more impactful.
Central to the guidance are new, jointly endorsed frameworks and sources of assurance that support every stage of the partnership lifecycle, from identifying opportunities and scoping a project, through governance and delivery, to reporting outcomes. Building on the strong foundation laid by the 2024 English guidance Accelerating Transformation: How to Develop Effective NHS-Industry Partnerships, these resources are designed to help teams navigate the practicalities of partnership working with confidence, ensuring ethical robustness, local relevance, and measurable benefits for all involved.
Our shared aim is to equip NHS organisations in Wales and industry partners with the tools, clarity, and confidence to deliver high-quality, patient-centred projects that address real needs, respond to local priorities, and can be scaled when successful. By setting out clear steps, templates, and checklists, this guidance helps to remove barriers, reduce complexity, and create the space for innovation to flourish.
Above all, it is an invitation to think ambitiously about what partnership can achieve in Wales and to act on that ambition. We encourage those working to improve health in Wales to use this guidance as a springboard for action, building collaborations that turn potential into progress and progress into lasting, measurable impact for patients, communities and the health system.
Darren Hughes, Director, Welsh NHS Confederation
Dr Richard Torbett, Chief Executive, ABPI
About this guidance
This guide provides a practical, step-by-step resource to help the NHS in Wales and pharmaceutical industry develop, deliver and evaluate partnerships that will drive improvements to the health and wellbeing of patients in Wales. It contains templates, recommended frameworks, and handy checklists and prompts to support you.
It contains template forms, recommended frameworks, and handy checklists and prompts to support you.
Who is this guidance for
This document is aimed at NHS organisations in Wales, pharmaceutical industry leaders, and those leading on the partnership and transformation agenda within their organisation or system.
We want you to use it to:
- bring stakeholders and partners together to assess priorities for NHS-industry partnership working
- design and implement partnership projects aligned to strategic objectives and informed by the guidance resources
- strengthen assurance and nurture the culture of effective partnership working
- scale existing partnerships across care settings.
