A recent Accord Healthcare Ireland with Pharmabuddy shows that 44% of Irish pharmacists are anxious about the forthcoming move to the High Tech Hub for all oncology medicines.
Accord Healthcare Ireland’s survey, which was conducted in June 2023, saw 154 pharmacists on the Pharmabuddy platform answer a range of questions on the High Tech Hub. This included the proposed move of the oncology high techs into the ordering hub.
Discussing the results of the survey, David Lane, Commercial Director for Accord Healthcare in Ireland, said: “We take our position of having the widest range of high tech medicines of any generic supplier on the Irish market very seriously. We acknowledged many years ago the duty of care we have to our customers in community pharmacy and the patients of Ireland.
“We know how busy pharmacists are and with this in mind, we ran a series of supports in the area of high techs including the creation of video assets for pharmacists on how to use the hub, issuing a handy reference folder explaining more about the high tech scheme and each of the high tech products offered by Accord; and, most recently, our involvement with the Lenalidomide Patient Safety hub which aims to ease the administrative burden on pharmacists when a patient of theirs is prescribed Lenalidomide.”
The High Tech Hub was rolled out by the HSE in March 2018 in an effort to streamline administration of the scheme for pharmacists and to provide enhanced visibility of stock management and spending on this scheme.
Since then, medicines have moved into the hub on a phased basis with the first being IVF products. Now, in 2023 all high tech medicines, except for oncology, must be ordered through the hub.
Industry and pharmacists are anticipating the move of oncology products into the hub sometime this year.
“Globally, we in Accord Healthcare have more than 40 oncology and oncology- related treatments making us one of the largest suppliers of chemotherapy products in Europe. We have therefore monitored
the development of the High Tech Hub over the years and our research means we will continue to work in partnership with pharmacists to ensure their needs are met and the transition of the remaining oncology medicines will be smooth,” said Mr Lane
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