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The health minister Stephen Kinnock has warned pharmacies to make sure prescriptions are delivered to patients “with reasonable promptness” despite delays impacting Royal Mail’s service across the UK.
In response to a parliamentary question last week from the Labour MP for Blyth and Ashington Ian Lavery, who asked how many patients “have experienced disruption to repeat prescriptions as a result of postal delays”, Kinnock (pictured) admitted the Government did not have an answer.
However, he reminded pharmacy contractors in England that it is their responsibility to ensure medicines reach patients even where pharmacies use a “delivery company…as a third party”.
“Pharmacy contractors in England are required by the NHS Terms of Service to dispense medicines and appliances ordered on National Health Service prescriptions with reasonable promptness,” Kinnock said.
“Reasonable promptness is not defined by a fixed number of days or hours but requires pharmacies to consider clinical needs of a patient and what is operationally feasible.
“Where a delivery company is involved as a third party, it remains the responsibility of the NHS pharmacy contractor to ensure they continue meeting their NHS Terms of Service.”
Royal Mail today issued a statement warning “local issues such as high levels of sick absence, resourcing or other local factors” may mean it is unable to meet its target of delivering to all addresses “six days a week”.
Royal Mail said: “In those cases, we will rotate deliveries to minimise the delay to individual customers. We also provide targeted support to those offices to address their challenges and restore our service to the high standard our customers would normally receive.”
Reports in the national press claim disruption to Royal Mail will affect deliveries to 62 postcodes in the UK.
Independent Community Pharmacist has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for a response.
As an independent pharmacist, what are your thoughts? Get in touch – neil.trainis@1530.com
Image: www.parliament.uk
