Community Pharmacies: Devon and the South-west
Debate between Rachel Gilmour and Adam Dance(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
I congratulate you on securing this vital debate. In my constituency of Yeovil, pharmacies provide vital services, including more than 6,700 prescriptions per month—not quite as many as in your constituency, Rachel.
Adam Dance
Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Minister to provide a clear timeline for the consultation to start?
Rachel Gilmour
I thank my hon. Friend for his not particularly concise, but erudite, intervention.
I will turn briefly to the funding model of pharmacies. Some 90% of a pharmacy’s income is derived directly from NHS funding, but when it comes to how that funding is allocated, the system is broken. Community pharmacies across the UK dispense more than 1.1 billion items a year and deal with shortage issues on a daily basis. The Department of Health and Social Care sets reimbursement prices in our system, but due to the reimbursement prices being so low and pharmacies being unable to compete on the international stage, the global market is now a safer bet for pharmaceutical companies than the UK. That means that people in the UK sometimes are not able to get the right medication due to shortages and that even when the DHSC puts together a price concession and allows for a greater reimbursement rate to allow UK pharmacies to compete for those life-aiding medications, there are extraordinary pressures on the NHS and the taxpayer. The realities of the funding model mean that community pharmacies are trying to push up water uphill using tools riddled with holes—in other words, sieves.