PSNC is remaining tight-lipped over the results of its audits into prescription payments to contractors, saying it is not useful to give an overall figure of accuracy.

The committee routinely checks the accuracy of NHS Prescription Services payments to contractors, but resources only allowed routine checks of a "small sample of contractor bundles" and the figures from these varied significantly from month to month, said PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe.

"It is not possible to give any useful overall figure, not least because changes are making a difference, and our audit checks are necessarily a few months after the dispensing month in question," Ms Sharpe explained.

The comments came as C+D revealed as part of its Fight for Fairness campaign that NHS Prescription Services was not able to estimate how likely it was to pay individual contractors correctly because no work had been done to check this.

Accuracy checks at NHS PS only assessed whether the overall amount paid to the sector was correct and could not be used to estimate the chance of individual contractors being paid properly, it told C+D.

PSNC last month branded the prescription payment system "indefensible" and unfit for purpose, and is calling for a new system to allow pharmacists to invoice the NHS.

But pharmacists and industry leaders said action had not been taken quickly enough to address the ongoing pricing problems at NHS Prescription Services.

John D'Arcy, managing director at Numark, told C+D earlier this month: "We support PSNC's call for fundamental change in the pricing process. However, we do feel that there has been an inordinate delay in getting to this point."

"We understand that PSNC does individually monitor pricing of prescriptions and it would be interesting to see how its findings compare with those of NHS Prescription Services," Mr D'Arcy added this week.

Posting on C+D's website, community pharmacist Ranjit Guraewal said the issue should be "a priority", while another reader said PSNC should have detected the pricing errors and "raised any alarm bells".

Find out more about the Fight for Fairness campaign, which is pushing for improved accuracy and transparency in prescription payments, and help us analyse the errors being made by NHS Prescription Services by visiting the campaign homepage.