The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7328 p804
4 December 2004

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Pharmacists can now be enthusiastic about future

Pharmacists can be more enthusiastic about the progress being made for the profession now that the new contract has been approved, Dilip Joshi, vice-chairman of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee for 2004–05, said last week.

However, they will need to negotiate through local pharmaceutical committees in order to gain the best from the new contract. He was speaking after the opening of his relocated community pharmacy in Clapham, London.

Enthusing pharmacists about how to make professional progress has tended to be difficult, Mr Joshi said. “In the past, pharmacists didn’t see any real outcome or anything materialising out of the discussions [about new services]. A couple of pilots would be started and they were never actually going anywhere once the pilot funding had run out.” Now the new contract has been finalised, pharmacists can be confident of the progress that can be made, since funding for the essential and advanced services is clearly allocated.

In terms of enhanced services, the key to making the most of the opportunities that the new contract offers will, Mr Joshi emphasised, be successful negotiation between LPCs and primary care trusts. “I’m not very much in favour of individual pharmacies negotiating with the PCT,” he said. PCTs need to know that services can be delivered on budget and LPCs are able to act as umbrella organisations to make fully costed proposals. Individual pharmacies simply do not, Mr Joshi argued, have the resources to do this and if services are negotiated piecemeal by individual pharmacists, patchy local services will develop and PCTs may opt for pharmacies offering the cheapest “lowest common denominator” services.

The pharmacy emergency hormonal contraception service has, Mr Joshi added, shown the value of providing a uniform service across all pharmacies and that is the model that pharmacists should aim to follow when negotiating enhanced services.