Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 82 of the NHS Long Term Plan, what specific reforms to reimbursement and supply arrangements for community pharmacy his Department is considering.

As outlined in the published final package of, ‘Community Pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond’¹, the Government is committed to pursuing a number of reimbursement reforms and taking steps to improve the prescription ordering journey to maximise patient choice and convenience.

The reimbursement reforms include:

- ‘non Part VIII’ products, i.e. products with no reimbursement price listed in Part VIII of the Drug Tariff;

- changes to Category M for certain generic medicines to better reflect their market price;

- changes to the margin survey to account for multiple suppliers for Non Part VIII products and Category C products;

- ‘splitting the discount’- to reflect that in general generic medicines have increased margin over brands; and

- changes to the way Category A prices are set.

The Government has also recently committed to reforming reimbursement arrangements for specials.

Note:

¹https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/561495/Community_pharmacy_package_A.pdf