The Government announced that it will cut £113 million from community pharmacy funding from 1 December 2016 to 5 April 2017 (a 12% cut on funding for that period), and a 7.4% cut of £208 million for the 2017/18 financial year compared to the amount funded in 2014/15.
An opposition day debate was held in the House of Commons on Wednesday 2nd November, with a motion not to cut that funding. The PDA Union provided a briefing document to MPs who were attending the debate.
The briefing document can be downloaded below and the Hansard text of the debate can be found here. There was plenty of discussion around vertical integration of pharmacies and wholesalers, Scotland’s Prescription for Excellence and the need for a level playing field between independents and vertically integrated multiple pharmacies in relation to Category M margins.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): “The Minister ought to take up some of the points made in the PDA briefing that was sent to all of us before the debate. The Government should be thinking about regulating the wholesale margins, reviewing the margins of some of the larger companies, and reviewing the way in which community pharmacies and the pharmaceutical wholesale industry are organised. They should not be making these cuts in community pharmacy services.”