To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the prices available to (a) large companies and (b) independent pharmacies for the purchase of pharmaceuticals from wholesalers.

Through the medicine margin survey, the Department assesses whether the reimbursement arrangements pay pharmacy contractors as agreed, as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework. The medicine margin survey considers what a sample of independent pharmacies paid, by looking at their invoices compared to the amount reimbursed by the National Health Service. As large companies are considered to have greater buying power, they are not sampled in the medicine margin survey.

Furthermore, where pharmacies cannot purchase products at or below the Drug Tariff NHS reimbursement price, Community Pharmacy England can request that the Department reassesses the reimbursement price. If a new reimbursement price is issued, it is known as a concessionary price.