5.02 The role of hospital pharmacies should be analysed
It is Lif’s view that an unfortunate competition between private companies and hospital pharmacies exists today.
Medicine should only to a very limited extent and only under special circumstances be given from the hospital pharmacies instead of from the private pharmacies. Hospital pharmacies and medicine depots should only supply the hospitals in the regions to which they are linked.
Production at hospital pharmacies and in the private sector ought to be put on an equal footing. That means that production at hospital pharmacies must not be allowed to distort competition through hidden subsidies from public funds or cross-subsidising from other activities. Therefore, hospital pharmacies’ accounts should show all the costs associated with their activities. Moreover, the cost calculations must be accessible and transparent.
The hospitals-sector supplier Amgros is responsible for a large proportion of the supply of medicines to hospitals. Since in principle Amgros is acting on behalf of the hospital pharmacies, there is an unfortunate conflict of interests.
The hospital pharmacies’ own production of medicines might possibly gain a favourable position in Amgros’s tender rounds thanks to knowledge of bids received, and it cannot be excluded that it is in fact the hospital pharmacies’ own production to which calls for tenders are matched. Also, the hospital pharmacies’ own production is maintained, even if those product groups are simultaneously the subject of a public call for tenders.
Lif believes:
- that it is unfortunate that the hospital pharmacies produce medicine in many of the areas that are the subject of Amgros public calls for tenders without themselves participating in this form of price competition.
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