The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7175 p733-738
24 November 2001

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Fee per item drops 10p

Pharmacy contractors in England and Wales are faced with an immediate decrease in the professional fee per prescription item from 97.5p to 87.4p. This comes as the Department of Health imposes on contractors an increase of just 3.7 per cent on the global sum — less than half the increase claimed by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee earlier this year.

Announcing the Department's imposition on 19 November, the PSNC described the 3.7 per cent increase as grossly inadequate in the light of prescription volume increases of 4.9 per cent in 2000–01 and a projected overall increase of 6 per cent in 2001–02. The committee points out that the increase is the same as for contractors in Scotland and Northern Ireland, even though their volume increases are far lower than those in England and Wales.

The 10p cut in the professional fee is designed to claw back "overpayments" in 2000–01 and in the first six months of 2001–02. An overpayment of £8.1m occurred in 2000–01 because the 4.9 per cent increase in prescription volume was ahead of the Department's 3 per cent projection on which the global sum was based. The overpayment for the first half of 2001–02 occurred because of the Department's delay in dealing with remuneration for this year.

The 10p fee cut will apply to all prescriptions from November 2001 to March 2002. The fee will then increase to a figure that has yet to be determined — although it will not be as high as the 2000–01 figure unless the PSNC can persuade the Government to provide new funding to cope with the volume increase.

See News feature, p739

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