Pharmacy Voice has written to the Department of Health to push once again for a solution to prescription pricing inaccuracies in England.
Earlier this year, Pharmacy Voice’s report on Cutting Red Tape in community pharmacy said:
“NHS Prescription Services is failing to ensure that the CIP programme is fit for purpose. If NHS Prescription Services can not demonstrate that it is getting a grip on the situation within six months, we will have to conclude that the agency is unfit to continue in its current form.”
In the letters to the DH and PSNC, Rob Darracott, Chief Executive of Pharmacy Voice said:
“Our members continue to find significant errors in the pricing of their prescriptions. The conclusion that the system of pricing prescriptions in England is broken is now unavoidable. Confidence in the system can only be restored following a major reform of the system. At a time of increasing financial pressure for pharmacy owners, it is critical that they should have the ability to independently verify whether they have been accurately reimbursed. A firm timetable for the implementation of a more modern and transparent system, providing pharmacists with a complete breakdown of their claim, is a minimum necessary step at this moment. An interim solution which allows ad-hoc verification of pricing accuracy by pharmacies would be a start. We note that such a system has already been implemented in Wales.”
The letters were sent in the same week that NHS Business Services Authority published their report into ‘prescription re-pricing exercise April 2009-March 2011’ which found that 82% of those who asked for recalculations were underpaid.
