Pharmacists are going to have to wait a considerable while longer for publication of any new strategy for pharmacy by the Department of Health. A Department spokeswoman told The Journal on April 11 that the strategy was being deliberately delayed.
"It is not imminent at the moment and there is no fixed date for it," she said. "It was on hold anyway."
She explained that the strategy was being delayed because the Department wanted to take account of a number of expected developments, such as the review of the supply of generics to the NHS.
Reports from the consultant (OXERA) commissioned to undertake the generics review are not expected until the summer. The consultant was asked to carry out a fundamental review of the totality of arrangements for the supply and distribution of medicines. OXERA was asked to carry out the review from two perspectives - a remedial approach to existing arrangements and a radical approach considering how things might be done differently.
The Department's confirmation came after The Journal sought clarification of the implications of a Parliamentary written reply on April 4 which suggested that the strategy, which the previous Secretary of State for Health (Mr Frank Dobson) promised would be published in the autumn of 1998, was being held up. The reply implied that the strategy may have been overtaken by the more recently announced plans to draw up modernisation plans for the National Health Service. References to the imminence of the publication of the strategy were notable by their absence from the reply. Also absent was any reference to the strategy as a specific set of proposals.
Mr Andrew Love (Lab/Co-op, Edmonton) asked the Secretary of State for Health (Mr Alan Milburn) what progress had been made with the preparation of the strategy and if he would make a statement.
Replying on Mr Milburn's behalf on April 4, Ms Gisela Stuart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health) said: "We are considering how pharmacists can best contribute to our agenda for the modernisation of primary care in the light of the national priorities guidance for the NHS we published last December and the key challenges set out by the Prime Minister in his statement on NHS modernisation on March 22."
The form of the reply is different from Ministerial responses to questions about the strategy over the past six months.
On September 29, 1999, the Minister for Health (Mr John Denham) said that the strategy was on his desk. He said that he would give it his attention as soon as he could and that it would be with the profession "shortly" (PJ, October 2, 1999, p513). Five weeks later, Mr John Hutton (Minister for Social Care) said that the strategy would be published "soon" (PJ, November 20, 1999, p808). A month after that Ms Stuart said at a meeting of the All-Party Group on Pharmacy that the strategy was unlikely to be available before Christmas and Mr Milburn said at an NHS Direct meeting that it would be "published in due course" (PJ, December 11, 1999, p930).
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's head of public relations (Mr Jean-Pierre Moser) told The Journal on April 11: "Our position remains unchanged. We are still awaiting the strategy from the Government."