The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7238 p299
1 March 2003

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  OFT report
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Letters to the Editor

OFT report

Interference both unnecessary and undesirable

From Ms R. Finch, MRPharmS

The Office of Fair Trading has admitted that it took no account of the health care provided by community pharmacies. Of course, it did not need to concern itself with general sale list medicines since these can be sold by anyone anywhere. It only concentrated on the theoretical savings that might arise if pharmacy medicines were more widely available — savings which, at an estimated £30m, represent less than 0.5 per cent of the £7.8bn pharmacy NHS turnover.

But there are no external restrictions on P medicines sales because there is no effective restriction on opening a pharmacy to sell these products.

What is the OFT talking about?

Well over 100 "non-contract" pharmacies exist and these can, and do, sell P medicines. If it turns out that non-contract pharmacies are uneconomic then that is an entirely separate issue.

The OFT is perversely advocating that NHS contracting be used to subsidise non-contract pharmacies that are predominantly retailers of P medicines. The OFT appears to be demanding that public money be used to support private retailers in locations where health authorities consider it neither necessary nor desirable for an NHS dispensing contract to be issued.

Pharmacists everywhere should write to their members of Parliament to say that the interference of the OFT in the running of the NHS is unnecessary and undesirable and the Government should reject its muddled conclusions.

 Rosemary Finch
Dunstable, Bedfordshire

Why OFT has missed the point

From Mr P. Modasia, MRPharmS, and Mr D. Patel, MRPharmS

There are inherent errors in the methods used in the research quoted by the OFT report and it has also selectively used facts from the surveys throughout the report to arrive at the stark conclusion of the need to remove the control of entry for pharmacies.

With regard to the OFT survey on average prices of P medicines (December 2001), it has concentrated on seven key products, ie, Calpol Suspension 6 Plus, Clarityn Allergy tablets, Ibuleve gel 5 per cent, Nurofen tablets 200mg, Nytol Caplets One A Night, Otex ear drops and Piriton tablets.

When resale price maintenance was removed, these products were heavily discounted by the supermarkets, and judging by the telephone calls we have received from independent contractors, the consensus is that because these prices could not be matched, the contractors concentrated on promoting their own range of P and GSL medicines, which were more competitively priced. This fact is totally ignored in the OFT report.

We regard the pricing of key P and GSL medicines permanently at low prices as predatory pricing specifically to put small independent and high street pharmacies out of business.

The OFT in its haste to blame the independent pharmacy sector, has missed the point that the retail price of goods can be reduced by other means, as already happens in the grocery trade. For example, why has the OFT not criticised manufacturers for not promoting price marked medicines?

In our view, it is scandalous that a report that aims to change the way pharmacy services will be delivered to patients relied on a survey of prices of seven pharmacy medicines.

The Department of Health and the wider profession has to be reminded that implementing the OFT recommendation would hand over the future of pharmaceutical services to grocery-based supermarkets. Is this the future that the Department of Health is seeking?

Paresh Modasia
Chairman

Dinesh Patel
Secretary
Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth Local Pharmaceutical Committee

Luddite behaviour inherent in the profession

From Dr N. Kometa, MRPharmS

The Office of Fair Trading report on control of entry should be viewed as a consultation document by the pharmacy profession rather than as a stick with which to beat the OFT. The report has drawn attention to the anachronistic and archaic manner in which National Health Service contracts are awarded for the provision of pharmaceutical services.

The opposition expressed to the report in the pharmaceutical profession appears to be a typical knee-jerk reaction which demonstrates the Luddite behaviour inherent in the profession. Such a reaction is not surprising considering the self-interest imbedded in the current system of awarding NHS dispensing contracts.

The OFT report has put forward one proposal in place of the present system, so it is incumbent upon the profession to put forward alternative proposals that can go hand in hand with "Pharmacy in the future" and make significant contributions to the changes taking place in the NHS. The status quo which has turned pharmacists into tablet counters and label stickers is rapidly becoming irrelevant in an evolving NHS.

For example, a system of tenders with fixed-term, renewable contracts based on performance seems to me to be amenable to a dynamic NHS. The tender process will have to demonstrate the value of other services such as preventive medicine, vaccination, medication review and counselling, blood pressure monitoring, diabetes testing, pharmacist prescribing, and referral and collaboration with general practitioners and other health care professionals to provide seamless pharmaceutical care.

There is no doubt that there will be losers and winners. However, it is a widely recognised fact that a well-run business or organisation is always evolving and adapting to meet the needs of its customers and members.

N. Kometa
Hull

Where is the logic?

From Mr F. Khan, MRPharmS

I am not nor have I ever been a proprietor pharmacist but I can only feel sick on behalf of some of my friends and hard-working colleagues who serve the community in their own businesses.

I thought Derek Essen's message (PJ, 8 February, p185) hit the nail on the head: how can we settle and develop as a profession when we are tossed to and fro by the whims of our "governors" in the Treasury and allied bodies?

Does any sane person here understand the logic behind the implementation of a well-researched and carefully thought-out limitation of contract one year and then, several years later, suddenly throwing the whole scheme out of the window?

Faez Khan
Leeds

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