New contract criticised as untransparent
Avicenna, a buying group for independent pharmacists, has criticised the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee for a lack of transparency over the funding of the new community pharmacy contract.
Salim Jetha, chairman of Avicenna, said in a press statement this week: “Our
members are experiencing a difficult choice — making a decision
in a limited time frame and based on a lack of total transparency.”
To help determine funding of the new contract, the PSNC commissioned
financial experts to identify what would be a fair return on cost and
investment. Mr Jetha said that this information had been made available
to the Department of Health and to multiple pharmacies through their
representatives.
“But independent pharmacists have been denied this information
and were told to ‘trust us’,” he said. “A PSNC
member who is not part of the negotiating team confessed at a local pharmaceutical
committee meeting that this information is classified and only available
to the negotiating team. That raises more questions, specifically, did
the PSNC vote on a ‘trust us’ basis?”
Mr Jetha adds that it would be useful to have an indication of who winners
and losers might be under the new contract and how market trends might
affect this in the future. |
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