The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7469 p284
15 September 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Related websites
Retention fees 2008

CCA steps in on retention fee increase proposals

Opposition to proposed increases in Royal Pharmaceutical Society membership fees for pharmacists (50 per cent) and premises registration and retention fees (6 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively) has been voiced by the Company Chemists' Association.

Factors behind the proposed increases include the additional cost of regulation arising from recent regulatory reforms, a deficit in the Society’s pension fund and the cost of separating the Society into two bodies — one for regulation and another for professional leadership.

The Society has also said that premises fees must be set at a level which bears an appropriate proportion of the Society’s regulatory costs.

CCA chairman Digby Emson said: “Having studied the Society’s proposals in detail we see no justification for an increase of this magnitude. We are fundamentally opposed to the membership funding any cost of de-merger and believe that these costs should be fully met by the Government. Until CCA member companies are satisfied that the Society has explored all possible ways of minimising the impact of fee increases on pharmacists and pharmacy owners, we will continue to oppose these proposals.”

Rob Darracott, CCA chief executive, added: “The case for funding is particularly weak when it comes to the new professional body.”

Between them, CCA member companies pay the premises fees of more than 45 per cent of pharmacies in Great Britain. They also claim, through the CCA, to pay the Society membership fees of many of the pharmacists that work in them.

Society treasurer Andrew Gush said that the CCA had chosen to link the proposed rise in members’ fees to the proposed premises fees increase and the formation of a professional body. “On the one hand it says that individual members should not have to pay the set up costs for the professional body, on the other hand it wants our individual members to continue to subsidise CCA members,” he said.

Both the CCA and the Society agree that all costs arising from separating professional leadership and regulation should be met by the Government.

A spokeswoman for Alliance Boots said that the company reimbursed its pharmacists on presentation of a Society receipt. Lloydspharmacy would not say whether it paid its pharmacists retention fees.