Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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510. To ask the Minister for Health the savings he envisages will be made by establishing a State pharmacy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34229/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Most drugs, medicines and consumable appliances paid for by the Health Service Executive (HSE) are supplied to patients through over 1,800 community pharmacies which, in turn, purchase them from wholesalers or, to a lesser extent, directly from manufacturers. The HSE strives continuously to achieve greater efficiencies in the areas of drug pricing, supply and distribution. For example, the HSE reduced the fees and allowances paid to pharmacists in 2009, 2011 and 2013 under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009. Under the present agreement with the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association, savings of some €400m in the cost of drugs will be achieved over the period 2012-2015.

The current distribution model results in over 70 million items being dispensed annually through local pharmacies across the State, including centres of low population in rural areas. This enables pharmacies to receive deliveries each day from multiple wholesalers, ensuring that all patients have continued access to essential medicines without delay.

Before any decision might be made to depart from this long-standing model of provision, clear evidence would be needed that a more cost-effective and equally accessible service, capable of meeting patients' needs on a day-to-day basis, would result. A State pharmacy would require a system capable of distributing some 70 million items across the State annually and I am not aware of any evidence that this could be achieved reliably and more cheaply through a centralised State function. It is worth noting also that the establishment of such a State-run arrangement would most likely have implications for the current network of community pharmacies, which fulfil a considerably wider role than the dispensing of State-funded medication.