Among the elements that led, in the first six months of 2011, to the reduction of 6.3% of the pharmaceuticals under agreement, even in the face of an increase in the number of prescriptions of 1.3%, there is the drop in the average value of prescriptions (-7.5%), but also the contribution of pharmacies. This was stated by Federfarma, which published the data on pharmaceutical expenditure under the agreement from January to June 2011. «In the first half of 2011, pharmacies guaranteed savings of over 300 million euros with the NHS discount, plus almost 39 million euros deriving from the pay-back, charged to pharmacies from 1 March 2007. To these charges was added, starting from 31 July of last year, the withholding of 1.82% on the expense, which cost about 100 million euros to pharmacies". The contribution of citizens is also heavy, Federfarma reports: «The incidence on the gross expenditure of participation fees went from 7.4% in June 2010 to 11.2% in June 2011, following regional interventions on tickets, but above all of the drastic reduction in the reimbursement prices of equivalent medicines launched by AIFA in April of this year". Among the data, the increase, equal to 1.3%, in the packages of medicines dispensed by the NHS stands out, which amounted to almost 554 million, equal to 9.3 packages for every citizen. «Furthermore, in the first half of the year there were over 303 million recipes, equal to about 5 recipes for each Italian».
Pharmacist33 – September 28, 2011
