Dispensing doctors defend prescription record
The Dispensing Doctors' Association has this week defended its prescribing track record with new figures suggesting that medicines dispensed by its members cost the NHS less than those dispensed by community pharmacists. But the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee said that the figures should be viewed with caution.
The DDA calculates the annual net ingredient cost per patient to be £134.17
for dispensing doctors, compared with £156.63 for dispensing of
GP prescriptions by pharmacists.
However, the association says that the figures could be explained by “two
differing populations, with variation in poverty or health.
… Urban and rural patients may have different health needs resulting
in different costs”.
A spokesman for the PSNC questioned the use of such statistics to support
the case for dispensing doctors. “For example,” he said, “another
statistic is that the dispensing fee for dispensing doctor practices
ranges from £2.045 per item to £2.309 per item, compared
with the dispensing fee for pharmacy of 90 pence. What is more important
is that under the NHS Pharmacy Contractual Framework, patients receive
a comprehensive pharmaceutical service from their pharmacies.”
He went on: “The net ingredient cost per prescription depends not
only on the products prescribed, but also length of treatment. The decision
as to what to prescribe and the period of treatment is solely that of
the prescriber, not the pharmacy.
“The lower net ingredient costs per prescription in dispensing
doctor practices could simply be a function of issuing more prescriptions
for
shorter duration — in a year in which overall prescription volume
increased by 4.4 per cent, the volume of prescriptions dispensed by dispensing
doctor practices increased by 6.6 per cent.”
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