Tony Blair BT NHS Official Sponsors Steering Group   BT is one of the world's leading providers of telecommunications services. Its products and services range from the local, long-distance and international calls to a portfolio of Internet and online services. Our customers range from single line domestic users to some of the world's largest multinationals. In the UK, BT has 20.5 million domestic and 6.8 million business exchange line. BT handles about 100 million local, national and international calls every day. BT employs around 130,000 people. BT was incorporated as a public limited company in the UK in 1984 and has more than 2.3 million shareholders. Our investment in research and development (R&D) at around two per cent of turnover - (£291 million for the year 1996/97) - enables us to develop new technologies and bring them to market. We are developing a range of healthcare products that will link patient and carer regardless of where they happen to be. BT is pledged to make a fitting contribution to the community. We support a variety of organisations and good causes, seeking to build a partnership with them. BT is committed to minimising the impact of its operations on the enviornment by means of a prograamme of continuous improvement. BT Health is a dedicated team in BT through which company focuses its activities into the healthcare market. Eli Lilly dates back to 1876, when colonel Eli Lilly set up a small pharmaceutical manufacturing business in Indianapolis. Today, Eli Lilly and Company is a global corporation with retail sales of $7 billion (dollars), ranked in the top ten in the world, helped by landmark products for the treatment of diabetes, depression and schizophrenia. The company is committed to innovation and excellence in the five therapeutic areas; central nervous system diseases (neuroscience); infectious diseases; endocrinology; cardiology; oncology. In the coming years, another important focus for the company will be in the area of women's health - particularly on treatments for post-menopausal women. A rich British history The Indianapolis based parent company set up its first overseas subsidiary in a small office in London, back in 1934. by September 1959, the company had built a major manufacturing plant in Basingstoke and immediately found itself at the centre of the war effort. By 1967, reflecting the increasing importance of British research in the pharmaceuticals arena, Lilly opened its first research facility outside the US in Surrey. The centre has been the site of several scientific discoveries. For example the first human dose of recombant human insulin was administered here. It was also in Surrey that a new treatment for schizophrenia was discovered. 1n 1996, the combined efforts of Lilly UK's staff of 1,750, earned the company the Queen's Award for Export Achievement. The award is the latest event in Lilly's long involvement in British industry. Glaxo Wellcome is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and the major single supplier of medicines to the NHS. As a global research-based group, we are dedicated to fighting disease by bringing innovative medicines and services to patients throughout the world and the healthcare providers who serve them. Our continuing success is based upon working in partnership with healthcare professionals, listening to patients, and anticipating and responding to changes in the healthcare environment. We believe that prevention and treatment of disease is about much more than providing effective medicines. That is why we take an active role in developing initiatives aimed at improving patients' health, such as the provision of comprehensive information packs for patients', and specialist support services for NHS managers, doctors, nurses and pharmacists. This includes providing health economics and health management information, and giving guidance on medical audit and healthcare priorities. These broad services aim to provide a framework within which the NHS can work to achieve its mission - 'to improve the nations' health and to secure provision of high quality care for those who need it'. Attention to the views, needs and experience of the people who prescribe and take Glaxo Wellcome medicines, combined with the quality of the company's innovative products, is the key our future success.     Copyright © 1998, NHS