No more surcharges from us, AAH Pharmaceuticals tells independent pharmacy contractors

Pledging its support to independent contractors, AAH Pharmaceuticals has announced that from today the wholesaler will not add any surcharges "to our community pharmacy customers."

An AAH spokesperson told Pharmacy Business on Dec 11: "In an effort to make it easier to do business with AAH, from today, no surcharges will be added for any reason to our community pharmacy customers. We hope this goes someway in showing our commitment not only as a business partner but to listen and support community pharmacy as a whole."

Pharmacy Businessreported on Dec 4 that independent contractors were unhappy with surcharges being applied by wholesalers during times of uncertainty. Nearly two of them said their mainline wholesalers had an unfair system of pricing for surcharges, according to a survey conducted in November by the National Pharmacy Association.

The wholesaler added: "At AAH we pride ourselves at delivering industry leading service and great value for money as part of our mission to work with customers, “creating a healthy future together”.

"We are equally as proud to be supporting our community pharmacy customers as they deliver a vital service to the nation during these uncertain times. We take our customers feedback seriously and have committed to respond with action."

Pharmacy Business reported a response from Alliance Healthcare on Dec 7 in which its spokesperson said: "As a leading pharmaceutical wholesaler, we operate a nationwide, twice-daily delivery service. To help enable us to do this we apply a low spend surcharge as per our terms and conditions.

"We work hard to ensure customers do not incur a surcharge and have a dedicated team in place that can help customers meet their qualifying spend threshold. Details of all surcharges are also available on our website, with helpful information for customers to avoid a surcharge.

"Alliance Healthcare works closely with manufacturers to ensure maximum supply of product to UK patients. In times where demand exceeds supply we may have to apply quotas to give an opportunity to all pharmacies to access stock."

The NPA survey, a smaller, snapshot survey which had 118 independent pharmacies participating, was aimed at finding out more about supply issues in the context of Covid-19.