PJ Online | News: OFT pharmacy inquiry has begun

The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7178 p839-846
15 December 2001

OFT pharmacy inquiry has begun

The Office of Fair Trading inquiry into controls over the pharmacy market has started (PJ, 6 October, p451).

A questionnaire was issued by the OFT to pharmacy proprietors on 7 December seeking financial details of their businesses and their views on whether controls over the availability of National Health Service dispensing contracts were of benefit to consumers.

The questionnaire also asks for views on whether local pharmacy services are adequate, what can be done if they are not and how proprietors have responded to applications for new contracts by competitors.

Although aimed principally at proprietors, the OFT says that it will also welcome responses from pharmacy employees.

It is also contacting other stakeholders in the community pharmacy network, such as professional and representative bodies, Government departments involved in the contracting process and larger retail chains, among others. The OFT says that its aim is to take account of as wide a range of views as possible. The inquiry is examining the United Kingdom market for what the OFT calls retail pharmacy services. A particular area to be examined is whether consumers are best served by the current statutory system that it says regulates where pharmacies can open. It is likely to take about nine months and the findings will be published, together with recommendations.

The OFT says that restrictions on where pharmacies can open may have an effect on retail competition as well as competition in dispensing. It is to examine the system to see how the present restrictions affect competition and consumers and to investigate whether there are alternative ways of achieving the public interest objectives behind the present arrangements.

It decided to investigate the pharmacy market because the retail pharmacy sector is substantial, with an annual turnover in 2001 of Ł18.7bn and because statutory regulation restricts entry to the market.

Copies of the questionnaire are available from the OFT (Fleetbank House, Room 1n/02, 2–6 Salisbury Square, London EC4Y 8JX) and can be downloaded from the internet at www.oft.gov.uk/html/new/pharmacy.
htm.