In January, PSNC said it had “discussed proposals from the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) to change the system for setting price concessions” at a committee meeting.

The negotiator agreed “key principles” for a “fair” system of price concessions, including that “any data used to set prices must relate to the period for which a concession is given”, and “PSNC must be able to challenge proposed price concessions”, it said at the time.

The DH has been trialling the new approach “since the start of the year”, based on “manufacturer prices rather than wholesaler prices”, PSNC director of pharmacy funding Mike Dent told C+D last week (April 19).

However, the DH “has not sought PSNC’s approval and we have not agreed the new approach”, he stressed.

Mr Dent is “not able to discuss any further details of the approach being trialled, but PSNC wants any new approach to ensure contractors are fairly reimbursed”, he added.

The DH told C+D it has been working with both PSNC and “the British Generic Manufacturers Association to ensure reimbursement prices, including concessionary prices, reflect the market as closely as possible”.

Further 15 prices agreed for April

An initial 13 items received concessionary prices for April last week and the DH and National Assembly for Wales have today agreed another 15 (see below).

“Changes to category M prices for this quarter have led to a reduced number of requests being sent to DH this month,” Mr Dent said.