APPENDIX 10
Memorandum by North Eastern Derbyshire,
Chesterfield and High Peaks and Dales PCT (PS 12)
North Eastern Derbyshire, Chesterfield and High
Peaks & Dales PCT wish to make the following points to the
Health Select Committee in response to the Office of Fair Trading
(OFT) Report into the provision of community pharmaceutical services:
— PCTs and GP Practices, by their very
nature, nurture relationships with the local community. We are
able to foster personal relationships with individual community
pharmacies and in this way develop patient services. We remain
unconvinced that this will be possible if these small scale operations
are driven out of business by large supermarket chains.
— We believe some small community pharmacies
in rural locations will close through greater competition, as
the owners will be unable to cross subsidise from more profitable
branches in larger towns and cities in the way they do at present.
— Since the global income available
to pharmacies through dispensing will be shared amongst a greater
number of businesses, there is a real possibility that loss-leading
services such as out-of-hours provision will cease. Although supermarkets
will be able to offer late night services, patients may have to
travel longer distances to avail themselves of the service.
— There is a very real need for peripheral
services that supermarkets cannot or will not provide. These include
needle exchange and contraceptive services. If local branches
are closed through greater competition then there will be significant
adverse local impacts.
— It is unlikely to have a cost benefit
to patients as smaller companies in less profitable branches may
well have to increase costs for OTC medicines and other products.
— The report seems to suggest that
the changes will give greater freedom for GPs to dispense in situations
that the current regulations would not permit. There is a fundamental
conflict of interest in the prescription and dispensing of medicines
and we are opposed to total freedom being granted to GPs to provide
both services. The current ability to provide both services in
particular circumstances works well and indeed is essential, but
it is unnecessary to de-regulate further. Additionally such freedoms
could drive a significant wedge between GPs and community pharmacies.
— If local branches close, patients
will have no choice but to seek advice from their GP. This goes
against the whole ethos of trying to encourage patients to use
professionals other than the GP.
— PCTs do not have the capacity to
formally consider and approve large numbers of new applications
to open pharmacies.
I hope the above comments are helpful in the
debate to be conducted on 3 April 2003.
March 2003
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