The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7245 p533
19 April 2003

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Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (www.psnc.org.uk)
NHS Confederation (more)

Work starts on new pharmacy contract

Work has begun in earnest on the development of a new National Health Service contract for community pharmacy.

Discussions have started between the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the NHS Confederation with a view to introducing the new contract in April 2004. Chris Town, chief executive of Peterborough Primary Care Trust, who has been involved with the new contract for general practitioners, is chairing the meetings.

Sue Sharpe, PSNC chief executive, said: "This is an immensely challenging, but not impossible time frame. A number of issues could throw it off target, including the time taken by the Government to develop its balanced package of measures in response to the Office of Fair Trading's pharmacy report."

She said that the PSNC did not expect there to be any horse-trading between the Government's response to the OFT report and the new contract. But the response to the OFT report could influence the rest of the work. Tension would also arise where consideration of what should be in the national contract interacted with the Government's desire to move power from the centre of the NHS to PCTs.

Reassuring contractors that the PSNC believes that the content of the contract is more important than the timescale, Mrs Sharpe said: "We will not be bounced into something we are not happy with just to get it through in time. We cannot agree funding until we know what level of security contractors will have — greater risk demands a greater return.

"We must have an assurance that the national contract overall will fund the NHS pharmacy service."

The PSNC is to send a summary document to PCTs shortly to start the consultation process. Roadshows to set out progress on the new contract and to give contractors the opportunity to make their views known will begin in June. The new contract will also be considered at the PSNC's community pharmacy conference in Birmingham on 26 November. Any proposed new contract will be subject to a referendum.