Of the 118 pharmacies surveyed by the NPA between October 15 and November 16, 68% said they thought their wholesalers’ surcharge pricing systems were unfair and were sometimes applied when they were not “clearly justifiable or proportionate”.

A further 67% said that wholesalers are not doing enough to flag when pharmacies are about to inadvertently trigger a surcharge. The same number said they did not feel there was enough information on surcharge policies on how to avoid incurring extra charges.

Shortages still an issue

According to the survey, shortages are still plaguing pharmacy teams, with almost half (49%) reporting that their team spends on average 1-5 hours a week dealing with the problem.

A further 47% said there are on average between 1 and 25 products that are out of stock or have supply issues at any one time.

"Clear themes"

NPA public affairs manager Neil Bhayani, said last week (December 4): "The size of the survey is small, but clear themes did appear, which we want to explore further with pharmaceutical wholesalers

"The majority of the complaints we get are about surcharges. We will be asking wholesalers to listen to their independent customers and to review their policies on surcharges.”

In September, the wholesaler Alliance came under fire from independents for its £350 low-spend surcharge. At the time, Alliance told C+D that it imposed the surcharge to help it operate a "nationwide, twice-daily delivery service."