The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7430 p688-689
9 December 2006

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· TDM
· Work breaks
· Pfizer products
· Enhanced services
· Concordance (2)
· Small pharmacies
· Huntington's disease
· Section 60 Order
· The Society
· Technicians

Letters to the Editor

Small pharmacies

New ESPLPS scheme has crucial flaw

From Mr S. J. Mitchell, MRPharmS

The old Essential Small Pharmacies Scheme (ESPS) has now been transferred to primary care trusts and renamed Essential Small Pharmacy Local Pharmaceutical Services (ESPLPS), having been described as “the same in many respects”. Unfortunately, there is one crucial difference that will weaken the whole scheme; that the qualifying prescription number threshold (currently 2,200 items per month) has not increased this year and I am not aware of any definite plans for an increase in future years.

The consequences of this will be obvious. Yearly prescription inflation will mean qualifying pharmacies will go over the item threshold and automatically come out of ESPLPS, never being allowed to rejoin the scheme. With the threshold for establishment payments going up every year (2,060 this year), it will not be long before the thresholds are the same and we will face being thrown out of the ESPLPS. If this happens we will have to struggle to stay above the establishment threshold to avoid serious financial loss, with no way back into the scheme if we fail to do so. I suggest this is not the picture of long-term security for essential pharmacies that the scheme was originally set up to protect.

I have two suggestions. One would be to increase the item threshold limit annually, as in the old ESPS scheme, to avoid being thrown out of the scheme through prescription inflation.

The other is to allow a pharmacy to rejoin the scheme if it drops back below the threshold, thus creating a safety net for the essential pharmacies.

I am sure that the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee would be glad to hear the views of any ESPLPS pharmacy which may be affected so that a solution can found during continued negotiations with the Department of Health.

S. Mitchell
Watford, Hertfordshire

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