The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7438 p157
10 February 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

PCT considers major outsourcing

Hillingdon Primary Care Trust is considering outsourcing all its operations except those involving interactions with the public and patients because it has lost control of its spending. The commissioning of pharmacy services is included in the proposal.

This means that three of the four primary roles of the PCT — assessment and planning, contracting and procurement, and performance management, settlement and review — could be contracted out to a private sector organisation.

A report written by the PCT’s deputy chief executive, Yi-Mien Koh, and considered by the PCT board late in January said: “Hillingdon PCT has failed as an organisation and significant changes are required to turn it around.”

The report set out four options — do nothing, build internal capacity, share services with other organisations or outsource. The board asked staff to work up a detailed assessment of all four options, including details of the financial and workforce implications, for consideration at its next meeting on 27 April.

Professor Koh said: “This paper has no direct impact on patient services.”

A spokesman confirmed that staff involved with commissioning pharmacy services are included in the review.

The PCT has accumulated a deficit of £54m over the past few years and expects it to rise by a further £11m by the end of this financial year. Most of that increase — £9.8m — will be because of overspending on acute services.

PCT chief executive Anthony Sumara, brought in late last year to solve the crisis, told the Health Service Journal last week: “I want to get rid of everything, outsource it — and we are distancing the PCT from its provider functions.”

Michael Levitan, secretary of the Middlesex group of local pharmaceutical committees, hopes that any outsourcing of PCT commissioning services will not have a major effect on community pharmacy. He told The Journal this week: “Community pharmacy is not seen as a major drain on PCTs. They’re not paying for a huge structure that has to be paid for whether it delivers or not.”

Community pharmacies in Hillingdon are currently paid to provide a minor ailments service, a smoking cessation service, a national pathfinder service to educate and monitor diabetes patients, a care homes service and out-of-hours and palliative care service, as well as normal essential services under the pharmacy contract.