The Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) has warned that a proposed move to pay pharmacists on a "fee per prescription" basis under State schemes could lead to the collapse of both the General Medical Scheme (GMS) and the Drug Payment Scheme (DPS).
The warning came after today's launch of the Brennan Report, which recommended that existing reimbursement mechanisms under which pharmacists are paid for medicines dispensed under State schemes be replaced by a flat fee.
IPU vice president Mr Karl Hilton said the union's members would not accept such a recommendation under any circumstances, but were prepared to meet the Government to discuss the issue.
Under the current GMS drug reimbursement scheme pharmacists are paid a dispensing fee of €2.83 per item, with no mark-up charged. GMS accounts for over 70 per cent of all medicines dispensed on State schemes according to the IPU. On the DPS, pharmacists receive a dispensing fee of €2.49 per item and charge an additional 33 per cent margin on the price of medicines dispensed.
Mr Hilton said pharmacists were demanding realistic payment for delivering services to medical card holders, and would refuse to pass on any additional costs to private patients in order to facilitate "this ill-conceived proposal."
Meanwhile in a statement issued this afternoon, the Chief Executives of the State's Health Boards said they hoped the launch of the Brennan and Prospectus reports would bring clarity for patients and staff after a lengthy period of anxiety and uncertainty.
They said that the State's health services remained under-funded, despite recent increases in investment. According to the CEO's group, spending on Irish health services is at present only 6.8 per cent of GDP compared to the EU average of 9.3 per cent and 12.9 per cent in the USA.
They said that while Ireland's health system was functioning as well as it was designed, Ireland's growing and ageing population have made reform a crucial factor in providing a world class health service.
The CEO's group said today's announcement represented what was hopefully a first step in a fundamental improvement of services to patients, but this had to be accompanied by an investment in bed capacity and a restructuring of consultants' contracts to provide benefits to patients and greater job satisfaction for staff.