The Health Service Executive has deferred the introduction of a contentious new price reform which would see it reduce the reimbursement price it pays to community pharmacies on medicines.

In September the Executive announced that following detailed analysis which showed that the current medicine wholesale mark-up was more than double the EU average, it would reduce such reimbursements from 17.66 per cent to 8 per cent from January 1, 2008 and 7 per cent from January 1, 2009.

It was intended that the changes would apply to medicines dispensed under the various HSE drugs schemes such as the Medical Card and Drugs Payments schemes.

The Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) had strongly opposed the decision and said that if implemented it would make the make the medical card scheme unviable for pharmacists to deliver from December. A number of pharmacists in Cork had also said that they would not have be in a position to provide medicines to patients at a loss from December which called into question whether the service would be available to the 142,254 medical card holders in Cork from this weekend.

However, this week the HSE deferred the introduction of the new price reform. A spokesperson for the HSE said that after considering the progress made that HSE management considered it appropriate to allow some further time for the process to proceed.

A spokesperson for the Irish Pharmaceutical Union in Cork said that the union welcomed the move. "Now its a case of getting into discussions with the HSE to discuss and address the real issues," he said.

Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath also welcome the decision and said that he believed an independent consultant should be appointed to examine the fees dispute and make recommendations which would be binding on both parties.

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment