Personalised & Precision Medicine

Personalised medicine is a move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the treatment and care of patients with a particular condition, to one which uses new approaches to better manage patients’ health and targets therapies to achieve the best outcomes in the management of a patient’s disease or predisposition to disease. - NHS England

Precision medicine is "an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person." - Precision Medicine Initiative.

Can we have 'personalised medicine' and 'precision medicine' without the patients' voice, perspective, engagement, input? Can we have 'personalised medicine' if we are not willing to take a personal approach when dealing with patients? Can we have 'precision medicine' without the individual patient being at the center?

I answered 'no' to each of the above. It is time to talk the talk and walk the walk. Let me rephrase! The time is long overdue to talk the talk and walk the walk. We have pharmaceutical companies who believe that it is enough to have patients at the table. In their opinion, patients are then 'represented'. We have health innovators creating new ways of thinking and working, new products focused on preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative and/or assistance care, but who forget to involve the patient in the process. We have patient organisations, representing patients but who forget to actually ask the patients how and what kind of representation they actually require.

Let us get personal and let us get the facts right (precision). Let us take the time to listen to patients, become partners, co-creators, co-innovators, co-designers, co-authors.