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Letters to the Editor
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PSNC
Independent pharmacy is heading towards a bleak future
From Mr D. R. Kent, MRPharmS
May I, through your columns, congratulate the Pharmaceutical Services
Negotiating Committee on achieving an increase of £89m to the global
sum paid to pharmacies in 2006/07?
Might I then expect that the PSNC would use a relatively insignificant
part of this, £7.4m or less, to fund the low dispensing volume pharmacies
back to the position they had before the implementation of the iniquitous
new pharmacy contractual framework? I think not. Although the PSNC has
not yet stated how the increased funds will be disbursed, we can be confident
that the larger, stronger players will get the lion’s share of the
cash.
Why do I think this when the new payment schedule has not yet been issued?
Because the PSNC has also indicated a rise of 3 per cent, to 2,060 items,
in the threshold for payment of the establishment fee when the period of
protection runs out in April 2008. Please bear in mind that this will equate
to almost 2,200 at that date. If the PSNC were going to demonstrate a social
conscience indexing would not have been necessary.
The PSNC tells these disadvantaged pharmacists to go out, offer new services
and poach prescriptions from their colleagues, and then moves the threshold
for achieving the base figure even higher, making it harder — as
it indicated it would in the original new contractual framework document.
I have been banging the drum on this subject since the iniquitous vote
in 2004 which the multiples and bigger players could not lose.
When will my colleagues wake up to the serious implications of the removal
of a complete layer of pharmaceutical provision? Where will the new, young,
aspirational independent contractor pharmacists purchase their first pharmacies
when affordable smaller pharmacies cease to exist?
I will not even mention the impact on those members of the public who find
it difficult to access the high street.
Wake up! The PSNC is forcing the community sector of our profession into
an arm of big business where profits and share value take prime place.
The future of independent pharmacy is bleak and that bleakness must be
placed at the feet of the PSNC.
This is a personal view and not necessarily that of Camden and Islington
Local Pharmaceutical Committee.
David Kent
Secretary
Camden and Islington Local Pharmaceutical Committee |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal