The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7246 p572
26 April 2003

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  New Charter
  Industry and Journals
  Homoeopathy
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  Drug addiction
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  Council election

Letters to the Editor

Remuneration

The GPs have set us a precedent

From Mr P. Jenkins, FRPharmS

The general practitioners' contract was meant to give all GPs more cash for rearranging their work pattern and taking on new duties. Apparently, it is not for working harder, for they said they are at their limit at present. This may well be true in some cases and it seems to have been accepted as a working baseline. However, when the proposals were published, a large number of GPs did their own calculations and found they would not be, as their negotiators had claimed, better off. It was assumed that a general vote would have rejected the new ideas and so that was delayed. The assumption is now that the figures will be reworked to make it profitable for all and so acceptable to all. Fair enough. Something has to be done to ease pressures and to increase GP numbers.

Will the same scenario apply to the proposed new pharmacy contract promised for next spring? If the Department of Health keeps to this timetable, that in itself will be a good sign considering the regular overshoots of negotiations even though the Department knows they are scheduled each year. One always feels that their hearts and minds are off doing something they consider more important than settling with pharmacy.

Following the GPs' pattern, pharmacy contractors should have the chance to work out the sums as they apply to their circumstances and if they do not get a result they like there should be a recalculation before any new contract is launched, rather than an imposition to suit the Department and the medical lobby.

We are anxious to take on new roles and to extend our existing dispensing duties with a monitoring dimension, but we must have adequate remuneration to afford any extra staff and equipment and to attract the best students to develop new ideas for the future.

A precedent has been set; now we want it applied to pharmacy.

Peter Jenkins
Cardiff

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