Pharmacists face courts if contracts broken

PHARMACISTS who withdraw from community drug schemes on March 1 could face legal action for breach of contract.

According to the Health Service Executive (HSE), pharmacists are obliged to give three months notice of intention to withdraw from the schemes under their contract terms.

Last night, a HSE spokesperson warned they could seek an injunction to prevent pharmacists withdrawing from the schemes which include the medical card scheme (GMS), the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS), the Long Term Illness Scheme (LTI), the High Tech Medicines Scheme, and Methadone Treatment Programme.

“If an individual pharmacist withdraws without giving three months notice, we would look at a number of options, up to and including going to court and seeking an injunction,” the spokesperson said.

The threat by some of the State’s 1,600 community pharmacists to pull the plug on the schemes from March 1 is on foot of a row with the HSE over its plans to revise downwards, by up to 9%, the price its pays wholesalers for medicines.

The HSE and the Government argue existing margins are more than double the level in other European countries.

Pharmacists claim the reduction in wholesale margins could mean they end up being reimbursed for less than the wholesale cost by the HSE and that hundreds of outlets could face closure.

The already bitter row intensified last night when Health Minister Mary Harney reiterated the Government’s support for the HSE proposal to reduce wholesale payments.

A statement from the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said her stance was “particularly disappointing in light of the concerns expressed by public representatives of all parties last week about the need to avoid making unilateral changes to existing payment arrangements pending the outcome of an agreed independent review”.

And while the IPU did welcome Ms Harney’s announcement of the establishment of an independent body to begin work immediately on accessing a fair community dispensing fee, it was critical of the fact that the body had been set up without any consultation with the union. The union intends to seek an urgent meeting with the minister.

Ms Harney said the new body will recommend a new, interim community pharmacy dispensing fee. The HSE has already offered to increase the fee from an average of €3.27 per item prescribed to €5.

This will be the minimum offered to pharmacists under a new interim contract. The independent body has been asked to make its recommendations by May and, subject to Government approval, whatever fee it recommends will be backdated to March 1, 2008.

In the meantime, the HSE is considering the option of seeking drug supplies overseas if the row is not resolved before the March 1 deadline.