Pharmacists look for new contract deal with Govt

The President of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) Dr Karl Hilton has called for urgent talks on the negotiation on a new contract between pharmacists and the Department of Health.

Dr Hilton was making the keynote address to the Annual General Meeting of the IPU, the representative body for over 1,400 pharmacists in Ireland.

The AGM took place this weekend in Wicklow.

Dr Hilton said the last 10 years represented “a wasted decade” in terms of using the pharmacy sector to its maximum to improve patient care and relive pressures on other elements of the health services.

“Over the last decade, every other country in Europe has found imaginative ways to maximise the role of pharmacists in the primary health care sector. Some have given pharmacists the power to prescribe medicines in limited circumstances, others have invested in very cost effective medicine monitoring regimes, others have developed their pharmacists’ education role.

"Here in Ireland, when we look back on the last 10 years, we’re looking back on a decade of wasted opportunity.”