From Mrs K. F. O'Brien, MRPharmS
SIR,-I am so glad someone else has written to raise the dreadful situation about remuneration (PJ, March 18, p437). How can Mr Axon believe that the "enhanced advance payments", as he calls them, should not cause us to be underpaid by thousands?
As far as I can work it out, April 1 will be another interim payment, therefore we are still owed the 20 per cent balances from November, December and January.
What Mr Axon seems to have ignored is the fact that the 100 per cent interim payments are clawed back the month after they are given. So, for example, on March 1, we received the correcting payments for October, a relatively quiet month, and they clawed back the advance payment for December, which is one of the busiest months, and left us with not enough even to pay our mainline wholesalers, let alone anybody else. Therefore, only one out of the three overdue 20 per cent balances is covered by the 100 per cent advance payment at any one time, leaving, in my case, about £24,000 less cash.
We have two pharmacies and our accountants have been involved, showing our bank manager that we are owed approximately £6,000 per month per shop, ie £36,000 in real terms.
We have also confirmed with Statim Finance, part of the AAH group, that this has been recognised by their head office and representations have been made. It seems that only the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee does not recognise this problem. It also does not recognise that, over the latter part of last year, our stockholding valuation increased due to the increased price of patient pack generics and the necessity of having to stock and pay for more expensive branded products when generics were not available.
When I wrote to Mr Axon on this issue he basically said that he hoped pharmacy in general was not stockpiling generics which was an issue the PSNC was trying to discount with the Department of Health as the reason for the generic drug shortage.
The only way I can deal with this is to pay for an extension to my overdraft and incur larger interest costs and bank charges.
The Government is planning to bring in legislation that small businesses must be paid 30 days from invoice or statement so that these small business do not go under when larger businesses withhold payment. I think this should be applied to pharmacy.
Rather than just waiting for the current payment system to go "back to normal", the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee should be pushing for payment of 100 per cent first time rather than 80 per cent followed by 20 per cent another month later.
As I pointed out to Mr Axon, I hope this is not the Government's way of reducing pharmacy numbers just in case the potential loss of resale price maintenance does not do the job.
K. F. O'Brien
Brixham, Devon