200m from prescribing budgets to pay pharmacists
pharmafile | November 13, 2008 | News story | |Â Â NHS, primaryÂ
PCTs will have to make major and unplanned cuts to their drugs budgets and divert the money to shore up the earnings of community pharmacists.
The government has agreed a deal with pharmacist negotiators which will see £202 million to be paid out by PCTs to England's 12,000 community pharmacists.
But PCTs will get no new funding, meaning each trust will have to save £1.3 million on medicines over the next six months, putting renewed pressure on prescribing spending.
The payout represents a victory for pharmacists and its negotiators at the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee [PSNC].
Although unconnected to the negotiations, the news will add to pharma industry fears about their own talks with the Department of Health. The money lost from the drugs budget will have to be recouped from somewhere, fuelling fears about last minute manoeuvres to wring more money from the industry in the PPRS talks, which currently hang in the balance.
The failing pharmacy contract
The reason for the payout is the failure of a new contract to generate sufficient income for pharmacists.
The current Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) was launched in 2005, around the same time as the new GP contract, but in contrast to GPs, pharmacists have not been able to earn as much as expected from the target-based contract.
It was intended to move pharmacists towards being paid for providing services to patients, the most significant of these is Medicines Use Reviews (MURs), where pharmacists check patients are on the right medicines and making the most of them. But the last three years have seen targets consistently missed for the number of MURS carried out, resulting in a shortfall in earnings.
The PNSC says the contract funding was inadequate and "makes investment to deliver new NHS pharmacy services impossible."
Noel Staunton, an independent industry consultant from 3i Consulting, said the deal would create significant problems for PCTs. He says he is surprised at ministers agreeing to the terms of the deal.
"The PSNC have obviously done a very good job [in negotiating], and the DH have gone along with it."
He says the payout is even more remarkable in the absence of any new conditions on pharmacists or changes in the contract.
One major obstacle is the lack of time. Other staff are not legally allowed to check prescriptions before dispensing, meaning much of a pharmacist's time is taken up with this, with insufficient time to move into new roles.
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