Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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348. To ask the Minister for Health if a response will issue to concerns raised by a person (details supplied) in respect of additional charges to the drugs payment scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32127/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013 permits community pharmacists to dispense generic medicines where a brand name medicine has been prescribed, provided they have been designated as interchangeable by the Health Products Regulatory Authority.

Reference pricing means a single reimbursement price, or reference price, for a group of interchangeable medicines. This is the maximum price that the HSE will pay community pharmacies for all medicines in this group, regardless of the individual medicines’ price.

Generic medicines must meet exactly the same standards of quality and safety and have the same effect as the original medicine. All of the generic medicines on the Irish market are required to be properly licensed and meet the requirements of the Health Products Regulatory Authority.

To improve the patient safety aspect for generic substitution, Section 13 (1) of the Act allows a prescriber to indicate on a prescription that a branded medicine should, for clinical reasons, not be substituted.

If a patient wishes to remain on a particular branded medicine, they should discuss this with their clinician in the first instance who may, for clinical reasons, write ‘do not substitute’ on the prescription. If the clinician decides to write ‘do not substitute’, then the patient will not have to pay the difference between the reference price and the branded product price.