Annual report

2018

The FAMHP, patients and healthcare professionals’ partnership gets stronger by the year

Since last year, our agency has offered you the possibility of discovering the annual achievements of the FAMHPFederal Agency for Medicines and Health Products in a dynamic and modern way through this comprehensive website. New for 2019: our annual report is available in four languages as the numerical results of the FAMHPFederal Agency for Medicines and Health Products will from now on also be presented in German.

You will see that 2018 was marked by positive developments at our agency in terms of communication and support for patients and healthcare professionals.

The patient and their needs are our agency’s raison d’être. This priority is clearly illustrated by the thousands of questions from citizens answered by our experts in 2018. And we also make it a point of honour to inform patients via their preferred quick and simple channels of communication, such as Twitter or Facebook, where our messages were viewed more than 2 500 000 times in 2018.

In the current national and international context, my colleagues and I attach a great deal of importance to the attention paid to the topics that are important to our partners. Thus in 2018, our services mobilised to address a sharp increase in the number of questions from professionals, notably concerning Brexit or the entry into force of the Falsified Medicines Directive.

Patients and healthcare professionals contribute their experience from their own perspectives. And it is our duty to continually keep these perspectives in mind in order to guide our projects and our ambitions. These key actors are our front-line partners. Our experts regularly exchange views with professionals in the medicinal and health products sector, as well as patient representatives, through the various committees, commissions and working groups.

In 2018, we also worked on ongoing improvements to our internal processes. With this in mind and in the context of the redesign of the federal healthcare administrations, our agency created the Transversal Support pillar in order to ensure optimal preparation for the relocation of the FAMHPFederal Agency for Medicines and Health Products and future collaboration with the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (RIZIV-INAMI) and the Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, Food chain safety and Environment. This new entity covers all of the tasks of the old Support services and the Chief Executive Officer’s Services.

I invite you to visit this website to find out more on this new organisational structure and discover the 2018 results for all FAMHPFederal Agency for Medicines and Health Products services.

Xavier De Cuyper, Chief Executive Officer of the FAMHPFederal Agency for Medicines and Health Products.