COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS save the Exchequer €460 million a year by keeping customers out of doctors’ surgeries and AE wards, a new report claims.
The savings accrue when pharmacists ensure customers take their medication correctly and provide unpaid advice on treating minor ailments, according to the report commissioned by the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU). It claims pharmacists save 3.9 million visits to GPs and 500,000 visits to AE each year.
IPU president Liz Hoctor said the report by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers dispelled many of the “misleading characterisations” about the profession, particularly in relation to profit margins.
The report calculates the average net margin in the sector at 6.6 per cent. This figure includes profits from sales of non-medical items such as cosmetics.
“There are many small pharmacies providing vital health services to patients, which would be much less than the average profit margin, and their future should not be jeopardised,” Ms Hoctor told a seminar yesterday to discuss the findings of the report.
She said the research supported the arguments made by the sector in its battle with the HSE over cost savings on drug costs: “Not alone do we have the confidence of patients who visit us in huge numbers every day but we are saving the Exchequer millions of euro in avoiding unnecessary GP and AE visits.”
Irish people pay 96 million visits a year to their pharmacies, equivalent to 23 visits per person, the report also estimates. Once there, more than 60 million medicines are dispensed under the public drug schemes and our pharmacists as a whole give advice 15 million times in a year on minor ailments.
The average Irish person spent €579 on medicines in 2007, with prescription medicines accounting for €455 of this total. This compares with a spending of almost €900 a year on alcohol and cigarettes for every person in the State in 2004/’05. The most commonly prescribed drugs are aspirin and atorvastatin (for lowering cholesterol).
The report shows there are 1,486 pharmacies in the State, slightly more than the number of post offices and slightly fewer than the number of major food outlets. About 16,500 people work in the sector and the average hourly pay of a pharmacist is €38. The average turnover per outlet is €1.88 million and average net profits are estimated at €125,000 per shop. Only 1 per cent of pharmacies have a turnover of less than €500,000 and 15 per cent earn more than €2,500,000 a year. Over half of all pharmacies earned more than €100,000 a year in fees from the medical card scheme.
The report says the fees and mark-ups that pharmacists earn from public drug schemes account for 3 per cent of the HSE spending.
Although chain ownership of pharmacies is growing, the majority of shops are single outlets and 90 per cent of shops are owned by pharmacists.
John Crawford, healthcare solutions manager of IBM General Business, told the seminar that healthcare systems in many countries would become unsustainable in the next decade without major changes. Many systems were heading into crisis because of unrelenting pressures related to cost, quality and access/choice, he said.
“Countries that successfully transform their health services will focus on value and creating better options for the promotion of healthy lifestyles. They will focus on a move from treating patients in secondary care [hospitals] to primary care, including through pharmacies and GP surgeries.”