Pharmacy2U - Costs To Nhs

[tali1]

These prescription online free deliver services state "No. In fact, using our service costs the NHS less than using traditional methods*
*Because we dispense from one central pharmacy facility, this means there are less location-based repayment fees for the NHS to patients"
But surely it would be cheaper for a patient to pick up medicines from his local pharmacy without additional costs of post/packaging that NHS have to bear ?

[Cloverjo]

It’s a load of rubbish.
The NHS gets its fee no matter how you receive your meds.
If your local pharmacy offers free delivery they bear the cost of it.

[fiction-factory]

I think Cloverjo they are saying they are despatched from a centrak facility and not from individual pharmacies- so it saves on the cost of storing within a local pharmacy

[Buenchico]

Many prescriptions dispensed by local pharmacies (such as my catheter bags) have to be ordered in each time that they receive a prescription, so there are delivery costs from the warehouse they come from. A firm that operates its own large warehouse won't face such costs.

Pharmacy2U's arguments, together with the RPS's counter-arguments, are summarised here:
https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/online-dispensing-could-save-nhs-12bn-pharmacy2u-tells-mps/20205034.article?firstPass=false

Local pharmacies (unsurprisingly) detest Pharmacy2U. The pharmacy down the road from me has a notice attached to their counter which tells people that the CQC found Pharmacy2U to be 'unsafe and ineffective' in 2017
https://www.digitalhealth.net/2017/07/pharmacy2u-found-unsafe-and-ineffective-by-cqc/
and points out that many patients were left without their medicines for three weeks at the end of 2015
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12075810/Hundreds-of-patients-left-without-medicines-over-Christmas-due-to-technical-problems-at-online-pharmacy.html
(However they don't point out that Pharmacy2U seems to have improved a great deal since those days: https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAH0178.pdf )