Health minister reassures MPs that pharmacies will receive fair funding for services
Health minister Jane Kennedy has reassured MPs that if pharmacy price claw-backs differ substantially from the £500m agreed in the community pharmacy contractual framework in April 2005 then reimbursement prices will be adjusted to bring them back into line.
In a Parliamentary written reply she said that the retained margin, previously
increased by 0.6 percentage points from 10.6 to 11.2 per cent depending
on the size of a pharmacy, is an integral part of the total of £1,766m
agreed during the contract negotiations.
A survey in October last year found that the 10 drugs which contributed
most to the total funding of pharmacies due to the difference in price
paid by them and the price paid by the Prescription Pricing Authority
were amlodipine 5mg (PPA reimbursement price £5.48), amlodipine
10mg (£7.96), citalopram 20mg (£2.59), gabapentin 300mg (£53.26),
omeprazole 20mg (£10.59), pravastatin 40mg (£3.33), ramipril
5mg (£2.55), ramipril 10mg (£2.78), simvastatin 20mg (£1.79)
and simvastatin 40mg (£4.14).
Mrs Kennedy said: “Disclosure of prices paid by pharmacy contractors
for the purchase of these medicines might prejudice co-operation in future
and make it impossible to undertake these surveys, and hence make the
monitoring of total payments under the pharmacy contract difficult.”
Sue Sharpe, chief executive, Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee,
said: “We have been working with the DoH to establish profit levels
and ensure that pharmacies are neither over- nor underpaid.” |
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