Hospitals are failing to inform patients when doctors responsible for choosing their drugs have received thousands of pounds from pharmaceutical companies, a new study reveals.

A survey in the British Medical Journal shows just six per cent of NHS trusts publish their register of gifts and hospitality online and that the majority make it practically impossible for patients to determine if there is a conflict of interest.

Since 2010, direct gifts and inducements have been banned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), following a Telegraph investigation.

But clinicians may receive payments for a variety of reasons, such as delivering lectures, or attending conferences and training events, which often come with lavish hospitality.

In 2017 the pharmaceutical industry reported spending £116 million on such activity.

Despite rules by the General Medical Council requiring healthcare providers to disclose any potential conflicts of interest, the new research by Oxford University found that around two thirds of the trusts fail to record the names of the of the doctors who had received hospitality.

The researchers are now calling for Britain to adopt legislation similar to the US “Sunshine Act”, which requires all payments to doctors to be declared onto a single searchable database.