The International Alliance of Patient Organisations (IAPO) is a global alliance representing patients of all nationalities across all disease areas and promoting patient-centred healthcare worldwide.  Its members are patients’ organizations - such as APMA - working at the local, national, regional and international levels to represent and support patients, their families and carers. IAPO has over 200 members which span over 50 countries and 50 disease areas and through its membership represents an estimated 365 million patients worldwide. IAPO is officially linked with the World Health Organisation.

On the 13 and 14 October IAPO will for the first time gather a large group of strong patient advocacy groups from across Asia-Pacific at a one and a half day patient group workshop entitled ‘Partnership and collaboration: working together to raise the patient voice in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions’. The workshop participants will include representatives from IAPO’s member organizations in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions. In addition, non-member patient groups in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia will also attend.

Issues to be discussed will include:

• are those most affected by healthcare decisions involved in taking them?
• if not, how can we improve collaboration between all stakeholders to ensure access to quality healthcare that meets the needs of patients?

As a result of IAPO generously meeting all expenses, APMA will be ably represented at the Regional Meeting by Treasurer Bill Fisher, who has several decades experience with health systems and workers’ compensation regimes, in addition to experience as an administrator and health consumer with persistent pain. We look forward to publicising news and decisions from this important gathering. You can read more about IAPO here.