The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7475 p466
27 October 2007

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Letters to the Editor

Community pharmacy

Perhaps pharmacy contractors should go on strike

From Mr P. J. Francis, MRPharmS

If a seller signed a contract to sell a house that allowed the buyer to lower the agreed price before parting with any money, the seller would be regarded as foolish. Yet that, it seems, is the contract the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee has with the NHS for supply of dispensing services.

The state of pharmacy in England and Wales, as it appears to me, is thus:

1. The Department of Health constantly reduces dispensing remuneration.

2. The DoH weakens the will of contractors to protest against the reduced dispensing payments with talk of payment for other services.

3. The money to pay for most of these services never appears. This distraction is like the thimblerig trick.

4. The DoH offers pharmacy multiples the chance to save money, by replacing most of their pharmacists with technicians. The multiples are hurting from reduced dispensing margins, and are tempted to agree.

5. Once technicians run most pharmacies, the DoH slashes margins further, and removes entry restrictions.

6. At the same time as enacting these changes, the Government emasculates the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the one pharmacy body that can claim to speak for all British pharmacists. This removes any opportunity the Society has to fight back and maintain pharmacy as a profession.

In my view, the only chance to stop these changes is for NHS contractors to go on strike in the same way that doctors refuse to perform NHS work when they are unhappy.

Paul Francis
Brisbane, Australia

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