Webinar: Building Smarter Payer Engagement for a Changing NHS
Access to this On Demand webinar and its related report
is by request only. Click here to request access.
Conversations across Verpora’s NHS payer network have identified a significant disconnect: more than 80% of current pharmaceutical industry engagement is perceived as poor, with a failure to demonstrate value.
In this webinar, Verpora’s Omar Ali and Neil Copping are joined by NHS decision-makers Yousaf Ahmad and David Thorne for a candid discussion about why engagement is falling short, what good engagement looks like to the NHS, and what pharma needs to do differently.
Background & Whitepaper
The structures governing market access in England are changing significantly. The consolidation of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) from 42 to 26, the reduction of NHS England’s central functions and the shift towards Neighbourhood Health are reshaping how local services are organised and how decisions about access to medicines are made.
Against this backdrop, Verpora hosted a private roundtable in June 2026, bringing together three NHS payers and pharmaceutical industry leaders responsible for Market Access, Key Account Management (KAM), training and professional development.
The discussion revealed a significant disconnect between current industry engagement and what NHS decision-makers need.
The whitepaper and webinar explore:
The changing NHS landscape: How structural reforms and increasingly localised decision-making are affecting medicines access and uptake.
The engagement gap: Why NHS payers believe much of today’s pharmaceutical industry engagement fails to demonstrate meaningful value.
Skills and capabilities: Why traditional measures of engagement activity need to give way to a greater focus on the quality of interactions and the capabilities of pharma teams.
The path to better engagement: Practical recommendations for understanding local priorities, addressing NHS service pressures and developing more collaborative relationships.
Webinar Disclaimer: This presentation is for discussion purposes only. No part of this presentation is intended as legal advice. This presentation is based on non-confidential, publicly sourced intelligence. Views expressed by the speakers are personal opinion and should not be attributed to anyone else. No part of this webinar may be reproduced for commercial purposes without the express permission of Verpora and Manatt Health.
