The NPA (National Pharmacy Association) has expressed concern over the level of detail which PCTs need to submit for their Quality Accounts and how this could impact on community pharmacy.

Margaret Peycke NPA External Relations Manager said: “Whilst we fully support the delivery of quality services and improvement in service delivery and acknowledge that organisations need to reflect on their practice in order to improve, we believe that data gathering generally and the production of Quality Accounts specifically should not overwhelm the delivery of services and lead to reduced patient care.”

“Many community pharmacies are small provider organisations and do not necessarily have the administrative capacity to produce detailed documents – the data they need to submit must be commensurate to their activity. Community pharmacies already suffer from many cumbersome administrative requirements and to add to this may in fact deter them from providing additional services for the benefit of their communities, rather than improve the delivery of the services they provide.”

Regional and national pharmacy chains will face other but equally considerable administrative challenges. The cost of providing Quality Accounts must be calculated accurately and that amount factored into practice payments when the Department of Health is negotiating with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC).

Source
National Pharmacy Association