Prescriptions: Costs
(asked on 19th October 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average costs to the public purse are of dispensing a prescription item from an internet pharmacy.
The following table shows the average fee relating to essential services per prescription item for pharmacies with different levels of dispensing activity for the period 2017/18.
| Number of Prescription Items Dispensed 2017/18 | Total Fees relating to Essential Services* 2017/18 | Average fee per prescription item 2017/18 |
Minimum | 1 | £1.29 | £1.29 |
Lowest Quartile | 54,470 | £97,520 | £1.79 |
Median | 79,138 | £130,826 | £1.65 |
Top Quartile | 111,404 | £170,158 | £1.53 |
Maximum | 2,925,671 | £3,869,711 | £1.32 |
Mean | 87,996 | £140,235 | £1.59 |
Distance selling pharmacies** (mean) | 61,117 | £102,621 | £1.68 |
Notes:
*We have calculated total fees as the sum of all essential service fees, including establishment payments and quality payments. It excludes any advanced service fees as these are payments for activity not related to dispensing. Any funding received via retained medicine margin, and any payments relating to the Pharmacy Access Scheme have similarly been excluded from this analysis and so would need to be separately considered.
** Includes internet pharmacies