�NPA staff visited the Prescription Pricing Division HQ in Newcastle to relay race the continuing concerns of pharmacists around the PPD's Capacity Improvement Programme (CIP).
Raj Nutan (NPA Head of Business Development) and Stephen Fishwick (NPA Head of External Relations) were hosted by PPD Managing Director Brian Alexander and his older staff. The NPA was given assurances that the new system for processing prescription payments is at present running more smoothly, afterwards a hard start. The NPA commission was shown the Prescription Pricing Helpdesk where the majority of contractors' telephony queries ar dealt with and how the PPD responds to customer queries.
Stephen Fishwick said:
"We saw for ourselves that the new system includes human as well as automatic truth checks. Nevertheless, no organisation is infallible and the PPD, as well as pharmacists, must be vigilant in ensuring that mistakes are unbroken to a minimum. What's more, when pharmacists question payments, they have a right to expect an efficient and full response. Brian Alexander undertook at the meeting that he will personally review whether this section of the process may be made more transparent. We search forward to further dialogue on this matter."
The PPD is running a series of open years in Newcastle - 23 September, 21 October and 25 November 2008 - for customers to see how prescriptions are processed. See hTTP://www.ppa.org.uk for details.
Meanwhile, NPA members ar encouraged to continue to feed in their experiences of the CIP to pharmacybusiness@npa.co.uk. This feedback helps the NPA to present accurately the concerns of our members.
National Pharmacy Association
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