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EHC row: value and price are not the same thing

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EHC row: value and price are not the same thing

The row over the cost of EHC from pharmacies – and the overwrought tone of much of the ensuing media coverage – raises serious questions about the perceived value of pharmacists’ professional input and how this should best be remunerated.

Clearly, price can be a barrier to medicines access and there is an onus on all pharmacies to ensure that EHC is affordable. But is the cost of EHC, for those who have to pay, unjustifiably high? The British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare certainly think so. Presumably Superdrug and Tesco now agree with them.

The rest of the sector has taken the view that the price reflects to some degree pharmacists’ professional responsibility – discharged during a consultation – in ensuring that women have safe access (or are signposted) to the most appropriate and effective emergency contraception, in as timely a manner as possible, with all the advice and guidance that this entails. EHC should not be picked off the shelf like a tin of beans.

There is a persuasive argument that all women should be able to access emergency contraception free of charge from community pharmacy through the NHS, with pharmacists receiving an appropriate fee for providing this service. However, as things stand, pharmacy is the first port of call for EHC for most women and it comes OTC with a price attached.

At the risk of going all Oscar Wilde, there is a danger that this fixation with price means that the value and true worth of a pharmacist's intervention is being ignored. This is extremely damaging because if it is EHC today, what will it be tomorrow?

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