Co-operative Pharmacy breaks into secondary care with Doncaster outpatient dispensing contract

I am interested to hear that the Co-op are committed to delivering a patient-focused service in the new hospital setting.

Once again it seems Doncaster is a the forefront of innovation in pharmacy as it was with its Pharmacy Quality Outcomes Framework.

It would be very interesting to see if the QOF results could be obtained under a freedom of information request, and a correlation between quality of pharmacy services in the community and the award of such an important contract was evident.

I always thought that the QOF could be used as a benchmark for future services, as it would make sense to want to work with and engage with quality pharmacies within the community network.

It is a pity that the QOF has now ceased, but never the less, the result would make interesting reading.

I would be more interested in a FOI on whether a in-house bid was considered and if not why not. There is clear Traesury guidance that any scheme that is undertaken for tax avoidance in this case VAT is not allowed. So the focus and rhetoric will be on patient benefits like reduced waiting times and improved inpatient care, but who pockets the 20% VAT now ?

Are the costs with this tax excluded lower or higher and if higher it means you and I the individual taxpayer have lost out again to the corporate pharmacy agenda.