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Conference calls for increased exemption-checking fee
An increase to the fee pharmacy contractors are paid for checking that
patients make valid claims for prescription charge exemptions is to be
sought by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.
After a lengthy debate on the economics of making the checks, and which
linked the two issues of exemption checking and prescription switching,
two motions calling on contractors to refuse to do the checks were lost
and a third was withdrawn. A fourth motion urging renegotiation of the
fee was then accepted without further debate.
The conference heard that contractors received about £13m a year
for making the checks, but that they lost £30m a year due to the
rejection of incorrectly completed exemption claims by the Prescription
Pricing Authority.
The first, and strongest, motion, proposed by Liverpool LPC, called for
the money contractors were paid for exemption checks to be returned to
the Department with the message “do it yourself.”
Because exemption checks were required by contractors' National Health
Service terms of service, Mr ALAN CASTELL (Barking and Havering) asked
whether or not it was possible unilaterally to withdraw the service.
Mr STEPHEN AXON (general secretary, PSNC) said that it was not. He added
that it was for the conference to consider the motion and then for the
PSNC to decide what it could do about it.
The motion was rejected by a large majority.
A second, and less controversial, motion, from St Helens and Knowsley
LPC called for simple withdrawal from the checking scheme.
Proposing, Mr CHRIS WILLIAMS said that the arrangement was unfair and
unjust. Pharmacists who asked to see proof of exemption received aggressive
responses from patients which were compounded when prescription forms
were endorsed to say that no evidence had been provided. “Who wants
to get a brick through his window for just 2p per item?” he asked.
On prescription switching, he said that his health authority had made
it clear that it would not look favourably on contractors making frequent
requests to check priced prescriptions to see whether or not mistakes
had been made. He urged the meeting to give the PSNC a mandate to go back
to negotiate a fair and just deal.
Seconding, Mr MICHAEL MANSOUR said that the PSNC should seek a new fee
which adequately compensated contractors for the time they spent on checks
and the threats they received.
Mr ALAN FACER (South Lancashire) said that, although no-one could say
that they did not want to help reduce fraud, he supported the motion because
of the way the checking scheme had been set up. “I was not given
the opportunity to know that I would be penalised for simple errors,”
he said. “Patients who do it wrong should be made to pay, not me.
I want to be able to correct my mistakes or bill the patient. I want a
more realistic scheme.”
Intervening in the debate, the PSNC chairman (Mr WALLY DOVE) said that
the switching of prescription from exempt bundles to non-exempt bundles
by the Prescription Pricing Authority because of incomplete exemption
claims was a separate issue which had nothing to do with point-of-dispensing
checks. The checks had merely focused attention on switching and the PSNC
was doing its best to sort the matter out. The message from the conference
would be taken to the Department.
Pharmacy's representative on the PPA (Mr MARTIN BENNETT, Sheffield) said
that when he had joined the authority four years ago, switching had not
been a transparent process. “At least now we can se where we are,”
he said. “Switching has nothing to do with this motion.” He
successfully urged the conference to reject the motion.
The third motion, which was withdrawn, called on the PSNC to tell the
Department that contractors were no longer willing to check patients'
exemption claims.
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