Let us now praise the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, which
has this week drawn its discussions on the global sum for 2000-01 to a swift
conclusion (p472). It has done this because
it wants to devote its resources to negotiating the details of the national
plan for pharmacy, unveiled at the British Pharmaceutical Conference earlier
this month (PJ, September 16, p397).
As the PSNC has acknowledged, the pharmacy plan is too important to the long-term
future of pharmacy to waste time haggling over the last penny of the current
pharmacy contract. The plan offers a chance to draw up a new contract, something
which is long overdue. The PSNC is also apparently taking a lead in ensuring
that a “cross-party” approach is taken to the plan by the major pharmacy
bodies, echoing the President’s call at the Conference for an end to “division
and distraction” in the profession.
The devil of the pharmacy plan will be in the detail and in gaining sufficient
funding, new or redistributed, to make its promises happen. The PSNC will be
aided in its work by the appointment of a pharmacist (Mrs Beth Taylor) to the
new NHS modernisation board (see p473).
One of the board’s tasks will be to draw up a report on progress with implementing
the NHS plan, and all its many sub-plans. The board will be able to see that
there is no slacking on the part of the Department of Health in turning the
desires of pharmacists into tomorrow’s reality.