The price concession for atorvastatin 80mg has been increased to £3.91 for prescriptions dispensed in July, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) announced yesterday (August 9).

CPE said that the improved price is now enough to cover the costs of “the majority” of community pharmacies that report prices to it.

Read more: ‘Frustrating’: DH 'imposed' atorvastatin 20mg and 80mg concessions, says CP

The DH had "imposed" a price of £3.45 in its final price concession list for July, released last week (July 31).

It also imposed a concession price of £3.38 for atorvastatin 20mg.

CPE yesterday said that it had received an “exceptionally high” number of reports from community pharmacies in July about their inability to buy atorvastatin 80mg at the tariff price.

Read more: ‘Four-figure loss’: Pharmacy contractors rage at atorvastatin crisis

The negotiator added that it made “further representations” to the government, indicating that pharmacies continued to report “ongoing concerns” that they could not buy atorvastatin 80mg at the imposed concession price.

Meanwhile, CPE said that it had “frustratingly” been unable to change the concession prices for two other items.

It added that it would be “pushing back” and “challenging” the “accuracy and quality” of the data that the government uses to set concessions. 

Losses

It comes as C+D last week released the results of an exclusive poll of pharmacy contractors, revealing that 47% were facing losses of over £1,000 from dispensing atorvastatin in July.

Just 22% of respondents said that they would not incur a loss from dispensing the medicine, which is in short supply.

Atorvastatin was the most dispensed drug in England during 2022/2023, with 58.7 million items dispensed according to the NHS Business Services Authority’s (NHSBSA) prescription cost analysis for that year.