National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair Olivier Picard has written to Health and Social Care minister Stephen Kinnock that community pharmacies are struggling to purchase medicines for their patients on behalf of the NHS.
In the letter that Picard posted on his LinkedIn profile, he pointed out that pharmacies have to often pay the wholesalers before they are reimbursed by the NHS.
Many wholesalers have a 30-day payment requirement, but now a 'major wholesaler' has announced that pharmacies will have to pay earlier than the current arrangement. This is putting further pressure on the 'already strained system'.
He said pharmacy owners are now left with no choice but to "bridge the payment gap themselves from their own pockets."
Picard said pharmacists will now have to "resort to measures such as taking personal loans, cashing on pensions early, borrowing from family, and not taking a salary."
He said pharmacists often do this because they don't want patients to go without medicines. "However, the situation is unsustainable and unacceptable."
Picard urged the minister to urgently review the NHS payment schedule for community pharmacy dispensing services to help pharmacies "maintain medicines supply for patients and to help avoid very hard-pressed contractors having to further increase their borrowing."
In his LinkedIn post, he said, "The NPA is calling on the government to step in and use its convening power to align payment schedules between the NHS and wholesalers.
"This wouldn’t cost the DHSC a penny, but it would make a huge difference to pharmacies’ ability to purchase medicines for patients safely and sustainably."
