The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7236 p215
15 February 2003

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All Party Pharmacy Group: GPs oppose deregulation

General practitioners have added their voice to the criticisms of the Office of Fair Trading report.

Speaking at an All Party Pharmacy Group meeting earlier this week, Dr Peter Fellows, chairman of the prescribing sub-committee of the General Practitioners Committee, said that the report was very narrow and medicines should not be treated like soap powder. Commercial interests should not be the main driver in how the pharmacy network was maintained.

"At a time when doctors and pharmacists need to get on and be working together [deregulation] would lead to a loss of trust between them," he said. Doctors opening pharmacies in their premises would wipe out the profits of small pharmacies.

In Dr Fellows's experience of having a supermarket pharmacy, a multiple and a small independent near his own practice, the best service was given by the independent pharmacist, and he queried whether or not patient choice would really be opened up by deregulation.

Dr Fellows's points were echoed by a representative of East Yorkshire Primary Care Trust who said one supermarket pharmacy had agreed to open on a Sunday but, because it was not making money, it had now closed, which made it hard for the PCT to manage the local health care system.

Many other speakers also commented on the need to ensure that, whatever system was in place, the pharmacy network was a planned and managed service to match Government plans.

John Evans, superintendent pharmacist of Asda, said that deregulation was not a matter of the supermarkets versus the independents, but a way of increasing patient choice.

A report of the the APPG meeting will be submitted to the OFT as its contribution to the consultation.