Arrangements are in place for the supply of high tech medicines through community pharmacies. Such medicines are generally only prescribed or initiated in hospital and would include items such as anti-rejection drugs for transplant patients or medicines used in conjunction with chemotherapy or growth hormones. High tech medicines are purchased directly from wholesalers/suppliers by the HSE and supplied through community pharmacies for which pharmacists are paid a patient care fee. Detailed information on the medicines supplied, prescribing frequencies and ingredient costs are published each year in the Primary Care Reimbursement Service's Statistical Analysis of Claims and Payments which is available to download on the HSE's website.
In 2011 the Minister for Health reduced the wholesale mark-up paid on high tech medicines and reduced the patient care fee payable to pharmacists for months when no medicines is dispensed by 50%. The following table sets out the number of high tech medicines dispensed, the cost of high tech medicines and the patient care fees paid each year from 2006 to 2010:
Year
|
Number of high tech medicines dispensed
|
Cost of high tech medicines (payments to wholesalers) Millions
|
Cost of patient care fees (payments to pharmacists) Millions
|
2010
|
390,838
|
€345.76
|
€15.48
|
2009
|
357,365
|
€315.36
|
€15.94
|
2008
|
315,256
|
€275.39
|
€15.28
|
2007
|
276,477
|
€238.51
|
€11.66
|
2006
|
252,692
|
€207.25
|
€10.51
|