The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee is about to call on the Government to follow up positive statements on pharmacy with cash to motivate the profession.
At a press briefing on January 17, following the PSNC's January meeting, Mr Wally Dove (chairman, PSNC) said that he had been pleased to see the Department of Health's chief medical officer (Professor Liam Donaldson) and various Ministers trumpet community pharmacies as the first port of call for advice on colds and influenza over recent weeks. He would now like to see that translated into money in the forthcoming remuneration negotiations.
Mr Dove said that the committee was in the final stages of preparing this year's remuneration claim, which would be sent to the Department in about a week.
"Past doubts over the future of certain parts of pharmacy, coupled with the low remuneration rises we have had over the past few years, have produced negative feeling in the contractor base," the PSNC chairman said. "It is about time that Lord Hunt and his colleagues recognised the reality of that and saw the potential damage it could do to the NHS."
Mr Dove said that if pharmacies had been less accessible to patients during the recent 'flu outbreak, there would have been serious problems for general medical practitioners and secondary health care.
Other matters considered at the PSNC's January meeting are reported below.
Prescription switching The National Health Service Executive remained intransigent on losses to contractors caused by incomplete prescription charge exemption declarations. The Prescription Pricing Authority was expected to be more transparent about the matter once its pricing backlog was resolved. In the meantime, it had been instructed to ignore dates of birth or ages written on prescriptions by prescribers even though these could clearly indicate charge exemption. This was costing contractors £10m a year. Mr Dove commented that contractors' point of dispensing checks had reduced prescription charge fraud by £36m and that he would not like to see this jeopardised by the NHS Executive being difficult.
RPM PSNC advice to contractors on completing an Office of Fair Trading questionnaire distributed by accountant Grant Thornton was to complete those sections that they could. Pharmacy managers should pass the questionnaire to their pharmacy owners or superintendent pharmacists. The questionnaire had been agreed with the Community Pharmacy Action Group.
PCTs The committee was still asking for Ministerial directions to say that primary care trusts should not hold community pharmacy contracts. The NHS Executive had been unaware that such directions applied to other NHS trusts. The PSNC hoped that PCTs would be told that they should only operate pharmacies in exceptional circumstances, such as the absence of alternative provision. Ministers had said in May, 1999, that PCTs were not intended to compete with providers.
Advance payment Advance payments of prescription cost reimbursement would be cut by 4 per cent for February and March, and possibly April, to reflect price cuts agreed under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme. Contractors were reminded that advance payments rose by 1 per cent a month to take account of gradually increasing prices and prescription volumes.
Professional development The PSNC approved a palliative care bid model for local pharmaceutical committees. Previous model bids covered domiciliary services, methadone supervision and needle exchange schemes.
Medicines management A bid for funding for a medicines management pilot scheme was expected to be submitted to the NHS Executive by the end of January.
PSNC dinner Lord Hunt (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health), who had Ministerial responsibility for community pharmacy, was to be guest of honour at the PSNC dinner on March 20.