To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether he plans to give the NHS Business Services Authority the (a) power and (b) additional resources to monitor the number of claim payments for medicines use reviews by each contractor; (166395)

[holding answer 20 November 2007]: It is for primary care trusts to monitor medicines use review service provision by community pharmacies and adjust individual community pharmacy remuneration according to that service provision. Therefore there are no plans to change the role of the Prescription Pricing Division (PPD) of the NHS Business Services Authority.

During the financial year April 2005 to March 2006, 25 pharmacies exceeded the limit of 250 on payments for medicines use reviews (MURs). In the financial year April 2006 to March 2007, 126 pharmacies exceeded the limit of 400. These figures do not take account of the pharmacies to whom the lower limit of 200 applied because they started providing the service mid year. In 2005-06 and 2006-07, the average number of MURs per pharmacy was 39 and 96 respectively.

In the financial year 2005-06, excess payments to those pharmacies that exceeded the limit was £42,218 (1,966 claims) and in the year 2006-07, the excess payment was £67,650 (2,706 claims). These figures do not reflect any recovery of excess payments made by primary care trusts (PCTs) nor does it take account of the pharmacies to which the lower limit of 200 applied because they started providing the service mid year. This is a matter for PCTs as they can locally commission and fund additional MURs above the national threshold.