This week Emma speaks to Dr Richard West, a GP partner in a dispensing practice in Suffolk and chair of the Dispensing Doctors’ Association.

Dispensing practices are a vital lifeline for patients in rural areas, but they are facing a host of challenges that are threatening their viability. In this conversation, Richard explains the crucial role these practices play and the immense pressures they are under.

Richard talks through the complexities of dispensing practice funding, highlighting how out-of-date fee scales and unreimbursed drug costs are affecting practices and what the Dispensing Doctors’ Association is campaigning for to ensure these essential services survive.

He also discusses what needs to change in the GP contract to support dispensing practices, the impact drug shortages have on staff and patients and the need to ensure that ways of working envisaged in the 10 year plan are designed to work for rural populations.

This episode was presented by GPonline editor Emma Bower. It was produced by Czarina Deen.

Useful links

Dispensing Doctors’ Association

Dispensing Doctors’ Association RAMP UP campaign

MIMS - Drug shortages - live tracker

MPs demand major review as UK medicine shortages now 'daily reality'

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