The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7217 p429
28 September 2002

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Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (www.psnc.org.uk)

2002-03 remuneration offer rejected

An opening offer of increased remuneration for 2002–03 for England and Wales has been rejected by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.

Following the PSNC's September meeting, PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe said: "We received the offer immediately before our subcommittee meeting. We have discussed it, but have not yet analysed its impact. The offer is not acceptable to the PSNC."

The PSNC is now beginning the process of discussing the offer with Department of Health officials and will be writing to set out reasons why the offer is unacceptable. Details have not been revealed.

Mrs Sharpe also reported that she and PSNC chairman Barry Andrews had met the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health who has ministerial responsibility for pharmacy (David Lammy). Responding to PSNC concerns about the pace of change in the National Health Service while there had been no real movement in relation to pharmacy, Mr Lammy had said that he did not want to see pharmacy in the slipstream of primary health care, but as a mainstream service. The Minister had indicated that he was keen to see progress over negotiations on the new contract.

"We expect weeks, if not months, of discussions," Mrs Sharpe said. "We are not looking at a new contract for 2003. That is a great disappointment to us, but we recognise that a new contract has to be agreed within a different funding strategy and that this is not something that is going to be put in place quickly."

The PSNC and the Department intend to develop a cost of service model for community pharmacy and hope to test data collection forms before the end of the year.

"We are looking to build a model that can be used to understand the cost of services under the new contract and what is needed for fair funding for the service, to which the Minister has expressly committed himself," said Mrs Sharpe

Both the Minister and his officials had been clear that they had no ideal what the OFT's report on the pharmacy market, which is not now expected to be published until November, would contain.

Other matters arising at the PSNC's September meeting are reported below.

Repeat dispensing The PSNC is to repeat its advice to contractors not to make any firm commitments to pathfinder projects for repeat dispensing. "We are not at one with the Department on workload and the interventions that pharmacists will have to make," Mrs Sharpe said. "We are not happy that the service could be portrayed as a commodity supply." The PSNC view is that pharmacists will have to take on a higher level of responsibility for medication.

Prepayment certificates The PSNC has advised pharmacy contractors to withdraw from any local agreements to sell prescription charge prepayment certificates with effect from 1 October because the Department has withdrawn funding for such schemes.