The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7488 p140
9 February 2008

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

PSNC seeks recognition for additional workload following changes to prescription sorting

Recognition of the workload associated with changes being made to sorting requirements for prescriptions is being sought by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.

The capacity improvement programme introduced by the NHS Business Services Authority’s Prescription Pricing Division will require community pharmacy contractors to change the way that broken bulk and calendar pack prescriptions are bundled for submission.

The NHSBSA is writing to contractors individually to alert them when their prescriptions are to be priced using the capacity improvement programme.

In this month’s Community Pharmacy News (PDF 420K), the PSNC says that it will be seeking to ensure that the extra workload associated with the changes is measured. This will allow any increase in costs to be recognised as an additional regulatory burden. Later developments of the capacity improvement programme are expected to simplify the submission process and to partly offset this extra workload.

Further information on the NHSBSA’s capacity improvement programme is available from the PSNC website