The Prescription Pricing Authority expects to take another 17 months to clear the prescription pricing backlog that has built up as a result of last year's crisis in the supply of generic medicines.
A letter sent by the PPA to health authorities and primary care groups on April 27 says that the PPA expects to be pricing a month's prescriptions within a month by the end of July. By then, the pricing backlog will be three months' unprocessed prescriptions. The PPA says that it expects to have reduced the backlog to two months' prescriptions by February, 2001, and to be completely up to date by the end of October, 2001.
The pricing backlog means that prescribing data that would help health authorities set and control their drug budgets are not up to date. The processing of prescriptions dispensed in December, 1999, was not expected to be completed until May 4, which means that PACT reports for the last quarter of 1999 will not be available until June 5, the letter says.
A concerned pharmacist told The Journal on May 5: "How can anyone manage their drug budget when they do not know how much has been spent? No-one in the country knows how much the National Health Service spent on medicines last year. How can you set a budget?"