Questions about PPRS and Drug Tariff

sebbacon commented 6 years ago

We have a chance to ask questions on Monday

Some questions

Seb

I realise many of these aren't specifically about the Drug Tariff, but policy in general...

[ ] Why is NP8 even a thing? Shouldn't it be a policy that everything is in the tariff?
[ ] I don't understand the incentives. We are incentivising CCGs to save money. One way is to switch to branded generics, but we don't want them to do that. Why don't the prices in the tariff more closely match the cheaper branded presentations? Or insist that everything is prescribed generically?
[ ] Is the national profit guarantee applied with respect to regional variation? i.e. regional variation in effectiveness of CCGs at saving money is going to affect pharmacies in their areas compared with other pharmacies
[ ] What's the system behind category M? i.e. on what basis is a presentation put in that category; and within the category, why would a particular drug price vary in one month but another not?
[ ] What's going on with NP8 food supplements like ThickenUp and vitamin D3?!

brianmackenna commented 6 years ago

[ ] If we stopped prescribing Cat M overnight , would we still have to write a cheque for £800 million to community pharmacy?
[ ] The common example is that if we stopped stopped prescribing paracetamol we would save all the associated spend. I know this isn't true but what would we save if we took this amount of volume out? (say annual spend is £80million)
[ ] How is PPRS actually monitored in terms of profit generation, rebates etc?
[ ] How are price concessions agreed? Is there a set formula for how high a concession is granted.
[ ] Does money shift to local government (local authorities eventually) / PHE if public health medicines are affected significantly by tariff changes?
[ ] Is any of the methods written down? Can they be published or what is the FOI exemption?
[ ] How does stuff get into the tariff for the first time a) medicines b) devices ?

richiecroker commented 6 years ago