C+D is campaigning for three things:
1 NHS Prescription Services to start paying contractors accurately, all the time, whatever that takes.
2 NHS Prescription Services to give contractors enough detail on their payments to enable them to check they are being paid accurately.
3 The Department of Health to acknowledge that the CIP system has been unacceptable, and to give contractors fair compensation in the coming financial years.
To do this successfully, we need your help. The first thing to do is share with us your experiences with NHS Prescription Services – tell us how much your business has been underpaid by and over how many months this took place. We'd also like to know what impact this has had both in terms of cost and administrative burden.
You can send us this information by post, using the printed form, or email us at fightforfairness@chemistanddruggist.co.uk
C+D will collate all your evidence and use it to help gather support from industry bodies. We'll also launch a petition that you can sign, backing the aims of the campaign.
To help raise awareness of the campaign, C+D will also produce a template letter for contractors to send to their MPs, calling for improvements in pricing to be made. You can help by sending this to your MP and asking them to raise the matter in Parliament.
All of the evidence and petition data will then be presented to NHS PS and pharmacy minister Earl Howe.
Fight for fairness latest
|
Fight for Fairness Pharmacy businesses operating under the essential small pharmacy scheme were short-changed by almost £6,000 each last year after an approved increase in their annual target payments was not implemented by pharmacy’s paymaster. |
|
Fight for Fairness Pharmacists and industry experts have slammed an admission from the sector's paymaster that its auditing and transparency processes have not been sufficiently modernised, saying the situation is "simply no longer acceptable". |
|
Fight for Fairness Following the revelation that dispensing businesses in England were left almost £470,000 out of pocket over the past two years, multiples have once more demanded action on payment reliability |
|
Fight for Fairness Contractors made 4,640 complaints to paymaster in 2011 |
|
Fight for Fairness Pharmacy businesses in England were left almost £470,000 out of pocket over the past two years after database mistakes meant the sector's paymaster priced their prescriptions incorrectly. |
|
Fight for Fairness 434 contractors ask for checks on 5,623 prescription batches dated between April 2009 and March 2011 |
|
Prescription payment Contractors in England have less than a week left to request a recheck of their prescription payments with NHS Prescription Services (NHS PS), PSNC has warned. |
|
Fight For Fairness Paymaster sends monthly schedules and script copies to wrong contractors |
|
Fight For Fairness Contractors want transparency and feel compensation for errors is not enough |
|
Fight For Fairness Pharmacy contractors have no confidence that they are being paid correctly by the sector's paymaster and feel improving transparency in the system is more important than receiving compensation for errors. |
|
Fight for Fairness Contractors are now able to request rechecks of prescription payments following the release of a CIP error payment form. |
|
Fight For Fairness The latest settlement for prescription pricing errors may not sufficiently compensate contractors and should be up to 25 per cent higher, experts have suggested. |
|
Fight for Fairness More than 70 per cent of monthly prescription payments fail to meet the NHS paymaster’s own accuracy target, PSNC figures have suggested. |
|
Fight for Fairness Contractors in England will receive up to £2,000 for "errors and any inconvenience caused" by the prescription pricing system, PSNC has announced. |
|
Fight for Fairness Community pharmacy leaders have welcomed the £20 million compensation package recognising the impact of prescription payment inaccuracies, but warned work must continue to address ongoing pricing problems. |
|
C+D has launched a petition calling for compensation for contractors in recognition of prescription pricing errors, a commitment to developing a new pricing system, and improved transparency in... |
|
Funding furore PSNC has revealed the community pharmacy funding package for 2011-12, stating that it will reduce category M prices, introduce a specials tariff, increase practice payments and compensate contractors for prescription payment errors. |
|
Fight For Fairness Pharmacy's paymaster should pay contractors interest on any underpayments caused by prescription pricing errors, industry insiders have demanded. |
|
The Department of Health (DH) has declined to comment on how or why its automated CIP prescription payment system was approved for use before being introduced in 2007. In a response to C+D... |
|
"The ‘sit back and wait for them to speak to us' approach is commercial suicide" AAH MD Mark James urged pharmacists to engage with GPs over NHS reforms The second quarter of 2011 got going with C+D's... |
|
"I think, quite frankly, he is talking rubbish" Hemant Patel did not welcome NHS Future Forum rep Ash Soni's assertion that most LPCs are not fit for purpose The Fight for Fairness campaign gathered... |
|
Use C+D's interactive flowchart to see how much you could be entitled to for prescription payment errors |
|
As C+D's campaign for improved accuracy and transparency in prescription payments completes its fifth month, Emma Weinbren explains what C+D has uncovered so far, and why the sector now needs to... |
|
C+D's Fight for Fairness campaign is pushing for improved accuracy and more transparency in prescription payments – C+D News Editor Zoe Smeaton explains how NHS PS does its sums |
|
It's tough to decide on pharmacy's least favourite phrase, but I think it's safe to say that "information governance" would come out somewhere near the top of the list. The requirements pharmacies had... |
|
C+D reporter Emma Weinbren talks to Silver Levene partner and pharmacy accountant Umesh Modi about inaccuracies in prescription payments and discusses his thoughts on the Fight for Fairness campaign.... |
|
A C+D investigation has revealed the causes of the errors that have plagued prescription pricing over the past two years. Internal NHS Prescription Services (NHS PS) analyses,... |
|
"This [campaign] is something community pharmacy desperately needs. If nobody stands up for [the sector] on things like this, the government can just ride roughshod over people." David Reissner, head... |
|
As C+D launches its Fight for Fairness campaign calling for greater accuracy and transparency from NHS Prescription Services in its payments to pharmacies, C+D news editor Zoe Smeaton explains why it... |

Accuracy checks reveal 3 per cent error rate