Monthly dispensing contractors remuneration

ONS kitemark

June 2008

The following tables display the payments made to Scottish dispensers of pharmaceuticals in the community, up to March 2008. The tables are intended to be used primarily as reference tables but may also be used to compare trends of payments from month to month.

The tables display payments made to all dispensing contractors in Scotland. Dispensing contractors, i.e. community pharmacists, dispensing doctors, and appliance suppliers, are contracted by NHS Scotland to provide a service to the populace of Scotland. To ensure drugs are available for dispensing when a patient arrives with a prescription, dispensing contractors purchase drugs in advance.

Therefore, dispensing contractors receive two distinct types of payment:

remuneration for the service they provide; and
reimbursement for the drugs they dispense.

These tables are derived from information gathered by Practitioner Services Division, after the pricing of prescriptions has taken place. Payments to dispensing contractors are made by PSD on behalf of the NHS boards. Monthly schedules are made available on a quarterly basis and a year-end summary is provided.

The tables display the overall Scotland total payments made to dispensing contractors, split between three defined groupings: community pharmacies, appliance suppliers, and dispensing doctors.

The vast majority of payments are made to community pharmacies, and are classified further to distinguish stock order payments and oxygen payments. An example of a stock order item is influenza vaccinations.

Appliance suppliers provide larger items such as bandages and, more commonly, stoma appliances.

Dispensing doctors, as the name suggests, are general practitioners (GPs) who are also contracted to dispense medicines. This generally occurs in more remote areas with a smaller population, where a separate doctor's surgery and pharmacy dispensary may not be practical or financially viable.

The main contents of the tables are:

number of prescription items (including stock orders);
total gross ingredient cost (GIC) (the total cost of drugs and appliances before discount);
net ingredient cost (NIC) (the cost of drugs and appliances after deduction of any discount, plus special payments made to dispensing doctors);
the 'gross total' is arrived at by taking the net ingredient cost, and then adding all fees, expenses, adjustments, oxygen and VAT;
'net total' is the gross total with patient charges deducted. Patient charges are the monies collected from prescription charges. Note, however that income from pre-payment certificates is not reported; and
'transitional payments' replaced dispensing fees for most contractors from December 2004. Note that the transitional payment will be replaced by a new payment stream when the new community pharmacy contract is fully implemented.

Click here for financial year 2002-03 schedules link to a microsoft excel file