A survey to decide how much contractors are reimbursed for medicines will no longer be co-administered by PSNC after a government agency raised concerns over a "conflict of interests".

Previously, the negotiator had jointly administered the margins survey with the Department of Health (DH). But this duty was passed to the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) as a result of a National Audit Office (NAO) recommendation in 2010 that the survey be carried out by an "independent organisation".

Data for the 2014-15 survey will be collected by a specialist team within the NHS BSA, although PSNC would still be allowed to "audit and validate" the process, the DH told C+D on Tuesday (June 3).

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	Any changes to the methodology of the survey, which involves analysing a sample of pharmacies to compare medicine purchase prices with the amount paid to dispense prescriptions, would "only be made" after discussions with PSNC, the DH stressed.

In its 2010 report on community pharmacy, the NAO recognised that PSNC had "expertise" in interpreting pharmacy invoices for the survey and the negotiator's role in the process encouraged contractors to take part.

But the NAO recommended that an independent organisation should administer and process the survey to "remove any potential or perceived conflict of interest".

"There is a risk of a conflict of interest in a situation in which the representative body for contractors is involved in administering a monitoring process that partially determines their members' remuneration under the contract," it said in the report.

The DH told C+D it had "carefully considered" the decision and had "worked closely" with PSNC and the NHS BSA on the new arrangements.

PSNC finance head Mike Dent said the negotiator had secured "full rights of access" to the survey to ensure its accuracy.

"For this year we will be using the invoices collected by the NHS BSA to carry out our own study in parallel to the margins survey and will be in constant contact with the NHS BSA through the process to ensure accuracy," he told C+D.

The NHS BSA would still have to agree the results of the survey with PSNC before they were used to inform negotiations on reimbursements, he added.

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