Sector backs 50:50 split for supply and services contract

How is the funding anticipated. If the sectors role is split 50:50 between volume and service, how will remuneration pan out.

How can people make informed choices about where they want the contract to move towards, if they cant understand the profit profile. Is dispensing output more valuable than service output.

Also in terms of risk management, today, as dispensers of medicine, we by law can only dispense medicines (including dispensing doctors), but in the future are we moving our global sum to the potential hands of non-pharmacists by introducing service output contracts.

The PSNC has demonstrated over the years how it has squandered and mis-managed the global sum. If we secure a split service level contract then how are we guaranteed that those services that we agree to provide cannot be taken by nurses, doctors etc. The risk is that we agree to split the global sum. Half of the global sum goes into service provision remuneration. After some years, another recession or so, the government looks to attack funding, well why not get nurses to do the pharmacists job of providing services...its cheaper and more cost effective. We cant argue then that we have a legal right to that role

The only way this can be done, if there is an introduction of new money, not a re-distribution of the existing global sum.

Good to gauge an opinion but no one should jump in without knowing what remuneration and reimbursement will look like. Currently the supply function is underfunded particularly with the Cat M debacle. Any new services requires new funding or quality of supply will deteriorate. There is only so much that can be squeezed from the pharmacy in terms of output. I am sure community pharmacy would embrace new services and deliver them if they can afford to keep open!! It would also be interesting to see how many people who are voting are from low volume dispensing pharmacies who would benefit in a swing to service based remuneration as opposed to high volume dispensing pharmacies who under current funding are possibly relatively harder hit. Would be worth collecting that data.

The pharmacy that I manage is running pretty much to capacity with the supply function (dispensing). I don't see how we can move to providing new services in any substantial way without an injection of extra funding. I am also concerned that a shift towards services from supply could leave us very vulnerable in the future as we competed with doctors and nurses for funding.

Regards,

Clive

Perhaps the answer to the question of Pharmacy moving from supply to service is;
Damned if we do and damned if we dont.

What nonsense you base a survey on 10 respondents and suddenly the "Sector back a 50:50 split"????

The sector does not in any way what so ever back a 50:50 split!!! Pharmacy needs to be fairly remunerated for both aspects of the service, any further reductions in pay for the work load we have for dispensing are totally unsustainable, in fact its totally unsustainable right now.

Which planet does the C&D live on seriously if you want to post results and make misleading claims then at least survey the sector as a whole and not make totally pathetic statements about the sector when then are totally baseless. All you do is misrepresent the sectors thoughts about renumeration and risk the PSNC representatives actually believing them to be true when they CLEARLY ARE NOT RIGHT.

If the government wants pharmacy to provide services then damn well pay us in addition for those services they wish for us to provide. We will not stand for any further cuts in our core business just to fund service provisions?? Which is in addition to the work we already have to perform.

When is enough enough?? We are already doing 70% more work in terms of script volume for the same pay. Does the Sector...... I mean those "7" respondents that thought a 50:50 split would be appropriate seriously live in the real world??

WAKE UP!!!! My goodness you are meant to be business owners with a bit of savvy about longevity for both your business and the sector as a whole.

Dhanoa,

Apologies for the confusion but the survey had considerably more than 10 respondents. At the time of publication, just under 100 people had responded.

The story has been amended above to state "70 per cent of respondents" rather than say "seven out of 10 respondents".

Any confusion conveyed within that sentence was unintentional.

Thank you for clearing that up Gary, I personally have no issues with providing services within our scope we just need to ensure our funding reflects this additional work.

Why should pharmacy be forced or even be blindly led down a path that has already resulted in us doing a significant amount more work but for what is and continue to be less renumeration?

Pharmacies provide a crucial role out there in primary care so why is it such a a struggle to ensure we are rewarding accordingly for the role we perform?

Forgive me if this seems a stupid question but how can the "70%" support something when they have no knowledge of what they are supporting? Its a bit like having a survey that asks the question, would you like a new car for just £50, everyone votes for it without knowing that they will end up with a matchbox mini. Independent pharmacists need to be careful what they wish for. It could be the back door to ruin!

I think you can support a general principle; everything has to start from somewhere.

You might, for example, support in principle a policy of the poorest paying less tax and the richest paying more tax. You would then need to know what definitions are to be used for "poorest", "less", "richest" and "more" before you agreed to the implementation of that policy. But the idea has to be aired before the detail can be ironed out.

So I think that the survey suggests a majority of pharmacists support in principle a contract based more on services than the current model is. Of course you would need more detail on how that would be implemented - including where the money for services was to come from - before you would agree to the practice as opposed to the principle.

Anyway, there'll be more discussion on this topic at the C+D Keynote Conference at the Pharmacy Show this weekend (October 9 and 10) in a Dragons' Den-style debate, with pharmacy leaders pitching their ideas for contract change and the audience voting on the proposals. Hope to see some of you there. If you can't make it, join the debate live on the homepage from 3.15pm or follow on Twitter using #cdconf11.

Since the OFT investigation into the Control of Entry, community pharmacy has been on the route of change, when the government found out that 90% of Pharmacy Turnover Business was based on a NHS supply model where an average return of £1,000,000 was giving gross profits returns of 35% for basic supplying drugs against NHS prescriptions it decided that such a model was too expensive to support and so we were introduced to Cat M, advanced and enhanced services so that tax payers would get a better return on their investment in pharmacy services. We have no control for this route of travel as I feel there will be a continual decrease of monies to the supply model and there will come a time that those pharmacies that do an excess of say 4000 items per month to become less profitable to run because there will be a reduction in remmuneration/professional fees for contractors which will be outwayed by the overheads such as staffing cost, deliver costs, regulation reqirements, etc,.