Sainsbury’s in Tunbridge topped the list by not claiming for 1864 prescriptions they dispensed by way of EPS in 2014.
Their pharmacy staff are to be retrained as a corrective action. But this is only half the story, there are many root causes but fundamentally the system is broken, there is no transparency and the pharmacies have no visability of their payments and are only informed after the event. Some pharmacists we have spoken to have no understanding of how they are remunerated for the prescriptions they dispense let alone know if they have been shorted at the end of the month. Why work for free for the NHS? You may find that you have no job to go to if the pharmacy goes bankrupt. Ensure your SOPs are up to date and that your staff are trained in all your procedures. Ensure you have a rough idea on a monthly basis of what you expect to receive each month even if it is just by multiplying your average prescription value by the number of items you submit minus the no of levies you have collected + MURs you have declared. Some pharmacists are never shown the pharmacy figures and thus are blissfully unaware.
How do you manage your pharmacy team ?
Jackie Peck