The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7230 p13
4 January 2003

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  Locum pharmacy
  Period-of-treatment fee
  Community pharmacy
  Repeat prescribing
  Wholesaling
  PI insurance
  Genetic research
  PILs
  Public health
  The Profession
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Letters to the Editor

Wholesaling

Payment rules should be changed

From Mr S. Dunn

The report from the recent GHP Procurement and Distribution Interest Group symposium, highlighted the presentation by Kurt Salmon Associates of the first phase of the NHS Purchasing and Supplies Authority (PASA) commissioned Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Project (PDF 50K) (PJ, 23 November 2002, p758). This initiative is a welcome and vital first step in improving the supply chain of pharmaceutical delivery to hospitals. The report mirrors and adds to valuable messages that came out of "A spoonful of sugar" last December and "Procurement and supply" in May.

For many years wholesalers have invested heavily in infrastructure to improve the supply chain, with the aim of helping drive a more efficient delivery of medicines to patients. Such developments include e-commerce order systems, twice-daily delivery, and increasing breadth of stock holding. More recently some wholesalers have begun to develop and pilot a ward box assembly service.

Twice daily delivery is well established and has since become the norm in our industry. This efficient supply chain that wholesalers operate in hospitals benefits immensely from synergies with the retail pharmacy supply chain. Wholesalers are eager to accommodate the needs of hospitals, but the introduction of new night-time, weekly, or emergency delivery services would be costly and would have to be paid for somewhere along the line.

The current Government rules on payments — allowing hospitals to pay an invoice only when all items have been reconciled — imposes an enormous financial burden on wholesalers. Lifting that rule would have an instantaneous benefit to wholesalers and their relationships with hospitals.

Our members recognise the importance of working with the National Health Service to ensure greater supply chain efficiencies by reducing the number of suppliers, and improving the level of e-commerce utilisation.

Wholesalers have for many years been moving towards greater relationships with hospitals. Maybe now that the value they add to the supply chain has been recognised and acknowledged they will be able to move forward in further developing a partnership approach. This strategic option, outlined in the report, is by far the more realistic and achievable of the three.

We look forward to hearing a response to this report from hospitals, and to seeing the next step from the PASA.

Steve Dunn
Chairman
British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers

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