New contract threat to small pharmacies
Community pharmacies dispensing small numbers of prescriptions might come under threat under the new pharmacy contract.
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee is said to have discussed
cutting the professional allowance from its current figure of £1,500
a month and raising the qualifying threshold to 2,000 prescriptions.
“The PSNC is aware, through careful analysis and research, that
a definite number of pharmacies will close,” a PSNC member alleged.
Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating
Committee, denied that the PSNC has analysed how many small pharmacies
might close: “We have not agreed the professional allowances, nor
how they are going to be paid. Nor have we done any calculation on how
many pharmacies would close.” Mrs Sharpe said that it would not
be possible for any such calculation to be done until it was known what
allowances would be paid and at what levels.
Mrs Sharpe confirmed that the PSNC has a lot of detailed data and models
related to pharmacy remuneration. “[The data] are confidential
and we are not going to disclose them,” she said. “ We have
got data on current costs, we have got data on the new services elements
and we have got models of how to calculate a fair return on that. When
we discuss levels of funding we can look to see what different types
of pharmacy need to cover their costs and give a fair return. No decisions
have been made.”
Kirit Patel, chairman of the PSNC’s marketing and public relations
committee, said that no decisions had been made, although a PSNC working
group was considering remuneration.
He said that the group’s remit was to produce a fair settlement
that disadvantaged neither small nor large contractors.
The warning rings the same bell as was sounded 11 years ago by the Pharmacy
Support Group (PJ, February 20, 1993, p232). The proposal then was to
introduce the professional allowance with a qualifying threshold of dispensing
volume that threatened the viability of many small pharmacies. Larger,
as well as smaller, contractors supported the resulting campaign. One
said at the time: “Small contractors are today’s front line
in the battle to survive. Once they are destroyed, we are in the front
line.”
Statistics published by the Department of Health show that nearly 1,100
pharmacies out of 10,452 in England and Wales dispensed fewer than 2,000
prescription items a month in 2002–03. Two thirds of them were
classified as independent pharmacies with the other third belonging to
groups with five or more contracts. |
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