Who’s driving our Heath Robinson?

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Neil Retallick articles by this author...

Neil Retallick is a former General Manager, Merchandising, for National Pharmacies, the successful community pharmacy model owned by the Friendly Societies. Neil holds a Graduate Diploma of Marketing from Monash University, is a CPM and a graduate of the AICD.He began his career with Myer Stores Ltd and worked for FMCG companies including TIA (Sheridan) and Pacific Dunlop. Prior to these roles Neil worked for Cadbury Schweppes Drinks Division - Grocery, and Trimex Pty Ltd in Victoria in State management roles. He is currently Chief Executive Officer at the  Combined Dispensaries in Sydney and is a Member of the Advisory Board at Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science

Last month I likened the community pharmacy industry to a “Heath Robinson”.
According to Wikipedia, “William Heath Robinson (signed as W. Heath Robinson, 31 May 1872 – 13 September 1944) was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for drawings of eccentric machines....
In the UK, the term "Heath Robinson" has entered the language as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contraption...”
This month I’m worried about who’s driving it.

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The community pharmacy industry sits at a crossroads where the Federal Government’s social policy objectives intersect with community needs, the commercial requirements for sustainable community pharmacy (the 5,000 or so pharmacies owned privately by registered pharmacists and about 140 pharmacies owned by the members of friendly societies), the commercial requirements for sustainable pharmacy wholesaling and the commercial objectives of the pharmaceutical industry.
This is without considering the professional aspirations of pharmacists as represented by the PSA or the pecuniary objectives of employed pharmacists as represented by APESMA.

To say there are more than a few stakeholders is a serious understatement.
What has always been critical to the successful implementation of the Government’s social policy regarding access to affordable medicines has been the clear leadership shown by the Government and the Pharmacy Guild over the last two decades and longer.
The infrastructure that has evolved and been maintained as a consequence of a shared and public methodology for funding the Government’s policy is a result of the certainty of revenue for all stakeholders.
This is not to say that every stakeholder has always been happy with the way in which the funding has been distributed across all industry participants, but at least it was possible for the industry players to plan for the future.

My concern has been raised by two events in the last month.
The first was a comment in the media attributed to the Minister for Health who said, referring to the Pfizer Direct model, that it was not the role of Government to tell companies how to run their business. The question this put in my head was, where’s the line?
The Government is happy to tell companies what their profit margin can be on the products they sell. They are happy to arbitrate over which products companies can sell and when.
They are happy to set operating standards for companies that they are required to achieve and to establish sanctions for those that don’t.
But apparently, the Government will not tell a company how to run its business.
That line in the sand is not really clear to me.
Given the leadership demonstrated by Federal Governments of both persuasions over the last 20 or so years, this comment seemed to indicate that perhaps the current Government had lost some certainty about its role.

The second event that happened may have been as a result of some politicians picking up on the ambivalence in the Minister’s comments, if the Minister did in fact say them.
The call for any enquiry into a publicly available document, the Community Pharmacy Agreement, seems to me to be just unnecessary.
If the closets have no doors, what can be hiding in them?
But in these politically turbulent times, when against the odds the Government has been winning more than it’s been losing, then perhaps anything can happen.
Not unexpectedly, some of the stakeholders who have not had an opportunity to be as involved as they think they should have been have taken up the catchcry for a review of the current modus operandi. Nothing to lose and anything to gain.

The Guild is in a difficult position here as it recognises the preferential position it has enjoyed over the years.
It behoves the Government then to stand up, lead any discussion and deflect any political pot-shots.
In this situation a discussion can be had, as that what our democratic process encourages, but the certainty of the Guild-Government Agreement should not be put under threat.
There is more than enough uncertainty ahead for community pharmacies over the next couple of years. As a taxpayer, I can think of better things that could be done with my money.