§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if the average cost to the National Health Service of £50,000 per year for each new pharmacy opened excludes the costs of any pharmacy opened under the essential small pharmacy scheme.
§ Mr. NewtonNo.
§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the detailed breakdown of the on average up to £50,000 a year cost to the National Health Service of each new pharmacy opened as stated by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, Baroness Trumpington, in the House of Lords on 15 October 1986, Official Report, column 832.
§ Mr. NewtonThe breakdown of the average cost to the National Health Service of each new pharmacy is estimated at
Labour costs: £25,000 to £30,000 per annum.Overhead costs and profit: £15,000 to £20,000 per annum.
§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will give an assurance that the new regulations for the proposed pharmacists' contract do not interfere with the existing Clothier arrangements;
(2) whether under the proposed pharmacists' contract, the family practitioners committee pharmacists' subcommittee considering applications for pharmacists' in rural areas would prejudice the existing Clothier arrangements for dispensing doctors; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. NewtonThe proposed new arrangements for allocating National Health Service pharmacy contracts and the arrangements for regulating dispensing in rural areas (the Clothier arrangements) would operate entirely independently of each other.
§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give an assurance that the enhanced essential small pharmacy scheme in the new pharmacists' contract is not applied to new incoming pharmacists that would replace existing dispensing doctors.
§ Mr. NewtonWe have proposed no change to the existing arrangements which, in some circumstances, lead to a pharmacist providing a dispensing service that has previously been provided by a doctor and qualifying as an essential small pharmacy.
§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many pharmacies dispensing less than 16,000 prescriptions will under the new proposed contract (a) be expected to apply for the essential small pharmacy scheme and (b) close.
65W
§ Mr. NewtonThe number of pharmacies expected to apply for enhanced payments under the new arrangements for the essential small pharmacies scheme is estimated at between 150 and 200.
There are no estimates of the number of pharmacies, dispensing fewer than 16,000 prescriptions a year, which may close after the new contract arrangements are introduced. The decision to relinquish a National Health Service contract is a commercial one for individual pharmacists in the light of their own particular circumstances.