Debate about whether the Community Pharmacy England (CPE) committee’s “curtain of secrecy” should be lifted has sparked at the annual Sigma conference.
Each of the negotiator’s 24 committee members vote on the pharmacy contract deal in “a secret ballot”, National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair and CPE committee member Olivier Picard explained to delegates.
“It means that I do not actually know how [another member] voted for the deal – whether they voted for it or whether they voted against it,” he added.
Read more: Proposals to reduce CCA power in CPE committee voted down
During a panel chaired by Avicenna executives, its managing director Brij Valla yesterday (May 13) asked CPE committee member Prakash Patel whether there should be “greater transparency to know at least how a CPE representative voted”.
Patel – “speaking as a contractor” not a CPE spokesman – said that this is a “valid point”, adding that “whatever happens with regards to the funding, each of the constituent members’…vote should be shown”.
Read more: CPE ‘reluctantly accepted’ funding offer amid ‘impossible position’
But “there are reasons why confidentiality is important and why certain aspects of the negotiations cannot be transmitted or revealed”, he said, adding that the NHS “stipulates” that each constituent must “sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)”.
Former Avicenna director Uma Patel told delegates that he “accepted” that confidentiality during negotiations “is important”.
But he revealed that “there was a leak about this negotiation” despite the “confidentiality agreement” – asking, “Who was the leaker? Obviously, one of you”.
“Secret cabal”
Joining the discussion, former RPS president Hemant Patel said that while “there should be confidentiality” during negotiations, “once a decision is made, how a representative votes is important in a democracy”.
“Every MP is accountable to their constituents and it is known which way the MP has voted,” he said.
“Yet at CPE the secret cabal hide their votes and the constituents don’t know which way they have voted – their excuses are behind the curtain of secrecy,” he added.
Read more: ‘CPE is falling into a trap’ - pharmacy reacts to funding deal
“I don’t understand in a democratic structure how this kind of thing is happening” – “I think it’s a lot of nonsense,” he said.
It comes amid criticism from the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) that the committee fell into “the trap of voting for a deal that does not address the [sector’s] funding deficit” during negotiations for the recently announced 2025/26 pharmacy contract.
But CPE said at the time that it “reluctantly accepted the final offer” from the government, with committee members “in an almost impossible position” during contract negotiations.
Read more: CPE is negotiating in a very difficult and nuanced environment that few will have experienced
Meanwhile in September, CPE vowed to change the composition of its committee “as quickly as possible” after it “revisited” the issue of representation following “a significant period of change in sector ownership”.
According to analysis provided to C+D by CPE at the time, Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) members owned 28.5% of pharmacies but accounted for 37.5% of the seats on its committee.
Non-CCA multiples meanwhile accounted for 19.5% of pharmacies but were allocated 12.5% of the seats on the committee, it revealed.
