I had been wondering for some time why the chain chemists were competing so fiercely for business in the area of repeat NHS prescriptions – they will collect, at no charge, your prescription from the surgery for you thus saving you some of the time & effort involved. Sometimes they even offer incentives such as extra loyalty points if you sign up with them.
Of course they get paid a dispensing fee, but no more than if you deliver the prescription to the store yourself; they may gain loyalty & extra sales at the margin if people transact other business with the; and I am sure they wish to do the best they can by their customers. But can that be all?
The answer I think was hinted at in a recent column by Dr Mark Porter in The Times: he mentioned how GPs are dissuaded these days from handing out prescriptions more than a month’s supply at a time for drugs such as antidepressants & others. So a dispensing chemist may now expect to earn say, 6 dispensing fees for the same quantity of drugs where previously there had been only one.
