Pharmacy Voice today took its campaign against pointless red tape to the heart of Government in Whitehall. Proposals to shave bureaucracy in dispensing and the administration of prescription payments were delivered to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the Cabinet Office, to Business Secretary Vince Cable, and to Pharmacy Minister Earl Howe.
In his Foreword to Cutting Red Tape: Freeing Pharmacists for Frontline Care, Pharmacy Voice chairman, Ian Facer, says:
“Our dispensing process is hindered by archaic rules. Our payment system is unreliable and inefficient. There are significant administrative barriers to developing new pharmacy services. We must tackle this insidious problem. We can no longer tolerate the inefficient reimbursement system. The duplicative approach to service commissioning and accreditation must be reformed. Snipping medicine blisters as a common practice belongs to a bygone era. With this report, we call on Government and other public agencies to take these matters seriously, so that pharmacists can be released to spend more time doing what they do best – delivering direct patient care”.
The Pharmacy Voice proposals include:
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office jointly lead the Government’s own ‘Red Tape Challenge’, which was launched in April 2011 and is scheduled to continue until 2013.