The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7382 p3
7 January 2006

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Statement on contract monitoring issued

In monitoring the new contract, representatives of primary care trusts can enter pharmacy premises and request documents necessary for audit and monitoring purposes. However, contractors are not obliged to send copies of these documents to PCTs, according to the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the Primary Care Contracting team.

In a joint statement issued in December, the PSNC and PCC say that in some areas PCTs have developed their own monitoring toolkits rather than using the pharmacy assurance framework published on the PCC website. This has led to questions from contractors about whether they have to comply with requests that differ from those specified in the national toolkit.

An area of particular concern is standard operating procedures (SOPs). The PSNC and PCC make it clear that monitoring compliance only requires PCTs to determine whether a pharmacy has a suitable SOP, not to make a detailed assessment of the contents of the SOP. The most appropriate way to do this is to check that the SOP exists during a monitoring visit, then ask appropriate members of staff questions about procedures to ensure that it is being complied with, they say.

“It would be unwise for a PCT to carry out any detailed examination, because it will be unable to determine what is appropriate for the individual pharmacy concerned,” the statement says.