The global sum for remuneration of pharmacy contractors in Scotland is to rise by 3.3 per cent to £80.63m for 2000-01.
The increase was announced by the chairman of the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council (Mr George Romanes) on August 22. In addition, a special fund of £500,000 is to be dispursed by primary care trusts under local specifications to contractors who want to improve their facilities for the provision of personal advice to patients. As a result of the global sum increase, the standard dispensing fee will rise by 0.5p to 94.5p per prescription item, with effect from April 1.
In a statement, Mr Romanes said: "Contractors will see the first payment of the new fee on August prescriptions and will receive a back-payment for April to July in December."
Mr Romanes added that model schemes for pharmaceutical care would continue (PJ, November 13, 1999, p770) with £500,000 being set aside from the global sum to run new ones that were coming into place around Scotland.
Mr Romanes also said that a scheme for the sale of prescription charge prepayment certificates from pharmacies was expected to be in place for April, 2001. Discussions on the mechanics of the scheme were currently taking place with the Scottish Executive.
The volume of dispensing is currently running at 3.6 per cent above that for 1999-2000. The Scottish Executive has assured the SPGC that there will be no further amendments to dispensing fees for 2000-01 provided that prescription growth remains within the range 2.4 per cent to 3.6 per cent. Mr Romanes said that fees could be increased later in the year if volume increases were very low.