The first Government consultation document of the New Year has already been done and dusted by the Federation of Wholesale Distributors. It came from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, an adjunct of the Department of Health that represents an extremely irritating on-cost for most wholesalers.
They are currently required by legislation to be expensively licensed and inspected by the MHRA for their very minimal sales of General Sales List (GSL) medicines - aspirin and the like. A particularly galling aspect of this is that wholesalers' competitors, the major supermarkets, escape these costs entirely.
Back in 2005, FWD made representations to the government to get wholesalers off this particular hook. We do not believe that our members' low-risk activities in GSL medicines present a potential hazard to the public that requires MHRA surveillance. After a lengthy review, we were told that no changes to the EC directive covering this matter could be recommended.
However, the latest MHRA consultation that concerns proposals for implementing a risk-based inspection programme has given us an opportunity to revisit the subject.
Therefore, we have requested once again that grocery wholesalers who only handle pre-packed and not cold chain GSL products should be freed from MHRA control altogether.
FWD believes that this responsibility could be passed safely to the local authority environmental health officers who monitor other safety aspects of grocery wholesalers' activities. This would have significant cost benefits for both our industry and the MHRA without compromising public safety.
We stressed that the wholesale mechanism provided by FWD members performs exactly the same function for smaller independent retailers that store-owned distribution centres provide for the multiples.
For example, a small grocery multiple distributing to its own stores would deal with the same suppliers of GSL branded products, and in roughly the same quantities as a medium-size wholesaler. And yet, it is not deemed necessary for public safety that their operations should be under MHRA control.
Although GSL medicines represent an infinitesimal part of a grocery wholesaler's supply, they are an important component in the product mix that a convenience store has to provide its customers - especially those who are elderly or do not own a car.
Therefore, wholesalers should be encouraged, rather than burdened by unnecessary costs, to ensure that this essential supply route to some 50,000 independent stores is maintained.
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