PSNC seeks meeting after 3.1 pc offer
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee is to seek an urgent meeting with Dr John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, after receiving an offer of a 3.1 per cent increase in the global sum for 2003–04.
Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the PSNC, said that the Department of
Health’s offer letter had come more than seven months after the
beginning of the financial year. The letter contained substantial inaccuracies,
she said, but no explanation of how the offer figure was calculated.
“What seems abundantly clear is that the DoH waited until it had
a picture of volume increases for the current year, then made this totally
inadequate
offer,” Mrs Sharpe said.
“The Government stated this summer that the average pharmacy gets £70,000
for the services it provides, which any civil servant or minister must
know is woefully inadequate to cover the costs of providing a pharmacy
service.”
The offer letter also includes reference to the £1m for training
pharmacy staff announced by the Minister of State for Health, Rosie Winterton,
at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (PJ, 20 September, p360). Mrs
Sharpe said that contractors would “not be overwhelmed” by
the £100 for each of them that this represents. |
