The pharmacy contract should reward pharmacists for the number of patients registered with them rather than dispensing volume, PDA chairman Mark Koziol has said.

The sector needed a contract that supported a more clinical relationship with patients, and this could be achieved by giving each patient a named pharmacist who would become their "medicines champion", Mr Koziol told C+D yesterday (October 6).

Patients "gravitate to where the service is best" and rewarding the sector for quality of care would allow pharmacists to "come into their own", he said."That one incremental change would radically move professionalism centre stage and allow pharmacists to reclaim their professional territory", he said.

Mr Koziol was disappointed by the contents of the recent funding settlement, which rewarded pharmacists for "knocking out prescriptions as quickly as possible".

As long as the large multiples dominated funding negotiations the contract would continue to encourage a consumer-supplier relationship, said Mr Koziol. Independents should "make their voice heard" and start demanding a contract to reflect a more clinical relationship with patients, he said.

The new medicine service and medicines use reviews had been "commodotised" for commercial reasons and the contract needed amending to ensure pharmacy services were only supplied to patients when necessary, he added.

The idea of all patients being registered with a named pharmacist is being rolled out in Scotland as part of the government's 10-year plan for pharmacy in the country. The PDA also advocated named pharmacists in its own road map for Scotland in 2012.

In the 2014-15 funding settlement announced last month (September 22), practice payments dropped by 17p, while category M prices increased by £10m per month from this month. This would reduce the average contractor's income by £870 for the second half of 2014-15, PSNC has said.

	What would you like to see in the next funding settlement?