Prescription Drugs: Yeovil
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of rising medication costs on (a) pharmacies in Yeovil constituency and (b) their ability to provide prescriptions.
Answered by Dr Zubir Ahmed
The Drug Tariff, a monthly publication, sets out reimbursement prices to be paid to pharmacy contractors for the medicines that they dispense. Whilst we do not look at specific areas of the United Kingdom or specific medicines, we do have arrangements in place to mitigate against rising medication costs for pharmacies, that ensure they are paid enough overall above what it costs them to purchase medicines.
Where prices increase significantly and rapidly, concessionary prices can be granted by the Department to ensure that pharmacy contractors are paid fairly, and can access medicines for their patients, even when market prices increase.
Concessionary prices are set using 'real time' market data provided to the Department under the Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 on prices and stock levels intended for retail pharmacy businesses in England. This ensures that prices set are reflective of the market and aims to reimburse pharmacy contractors fairly.
For branded medicine such as Actimorph the Department sets maximum list prices which are controlled through the Voluntary scheme for branded medicines Pricing, Access and Growth and the statutory scheme.
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