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	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 270 No 7236 p226 15 February 2003	This page Reprint Photocopy
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Letters to the Editor

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PSNC

A body with no muscle

From Mr D. H. Patel, MRPharmS

I was proud when I first bought my pharmacy in 1971. In those days, the Chemists Contractors Committee was our negotiating body and it rarely succeeded in getting a decent remuneration for the contractors. When it was superseded by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee I thought my luck had changed for good. But had it? No!

Almost every year the PSNC made noises about what they were looking for from the Department of Health. Every year it has come back with nothing but breadcrumbs with which to run my business and feed my family. Things just got worse as the years went by. I had to work harder and harder to earn the same amount of money from one year to the next.

Having got fed up with the PSNC, which just could not negotiate, and the Department of Health, who was always on the look out for "over-payments", I sold my business in 1999. I now am happy that I do not have to put up with the nonsense from either of them.

In my view, the PSNC is a hopeless body with no muscle and it is a waste of one's hard earned money to finance its existence. We should have formed a trades union or joined a scientific and managerial union in the 1970s.

D. H. Patel
Luton, Bedfordshire

SUE SHARPE, chief executive, Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, replies:

Whether a decision to join a trade union in the 1970s would have resulted in better outcomes for pharmacy contractors is hard to judge. The greatest problem for the PSNC, then and today, is legislation that allows the Secretary of State to determine remuneration. To that extent the PSNC does not have muscle; it never has and nor would a trade union.

Mr Patel sold his pharmacy in 1999. Current contractors face some major threats and few would have any illusions that it is easy to get a satisfactory outcome to them. At present the PSNC is working on three national priority issues: the future of control of entry, negotiating a new contract and securing acceptable systems for generics remuneration. These are not simple, but they are vital for the future of community pharmacy, and it is essential that contractors' interests are represented at national level.

The PSNC has always worked to represent pharmacy contractors; its members are community pharmacists who share the interests and frustrations of all pharmacy owners. Local pharmaceutical committees work hard at local level to build opportunities for contractors, and a major role for the PSNC is to provide support and services for them as well as information and advice to contractors. As the Government devolves funds to local level, the role of LPCs will become even more important, and we would urge contractors to support their local LPC.

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