THE HIGH Court has reserved judgment on a test challenge by more than 20 pharmacies to the Health Service Executive's decisions reducing the amounts paid to pharmacies for free provision of drugs and services under the General Medical Services scheme.
The seven-day hearing of the action by the Hickey group of about two dozen pharmacies, the outcome of which will affect similar cases by hundreds of other pharmacies, concluded at the Commercial Court yesterday before Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan, who reserved her decision.
She said she hoped to deliver her judgment in September.
The Hickey group wants orders overturning decisions by the HSE of September 2006 and September 2007, alleging those decisions breach the terms of its contracts under the Community Pharmacy Contract of 1996 and would lead to losses of more than €2 million annually.
The new HSE payments scheme came into effect last March and is aimed at reducing the HSE bill under the GMS by millions of euro, the court has heard. The HSE has argued that the scheme was intended only to reimburse pharmacies for the cost of the drugs and was never intended to be a "source of profit" for pharmacies.
The court heard the basic ex-wholesale price paid to pharmacists by the HSE for drugs provided by them under the GMS had from 1971 included a 17.6 per cent mark-up to reflect what wholesalers were invoicing pharmacies.
The HSE argues that the Minister for Health was entitled to reduce that mark-up to 8 per cent.