The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7345 p451
16 April 2005

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· General election
· EU services directive
· Repeat dispensing
· Community pharmacy
· New contract
· Charge refunds
· Technicians
· Antipsychotics
· Methadone
· The profession (2)
· Registration

Letters to the Editor

Charge refunds

Are we going to comply with this nonsense?

From Mr P. Melnick, MRPharmS

I had always regarded Panorama’s Italian spaghetti harvest as the best April Fool’s joke — until this year that is, when with little or no warning contractors found that they were responsible for handling prescription charge refunds (PJ, 19 March, p324).

That pharmacists received nothing for issuing receipts while the post office that cashed them was given a per transaction payment was always a source of quiet dissatisfaction. But now all that has changed. A munificent £200,000 per annum has been added to the balance sheet to be distributed among us according to prescription volume, irrespective of how many refunds are handled by any one pharmacy.

So, perhaps for less than £20 a year, contractors are expected to give away their own money, interest free, for up to three months at a time and at their own risk, for you can rest assured that any mistakes made will reside with contractors.

Do contractors really want to act as lenders of last resort to the Government. Or are we, independents and multiples alike, going to dig in our heels and refuse to comply with this nonsense?

Perry Melnick
Ilford, Essex

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