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Gareth Jones, public affairs manager at the NPA, considers the implications for pharmacy if the UK were to leave the European Union

The General Election is over, and David Cameron has promised to use his majority in Westminster to hold a referendum on membership of the European Union by 2017. Many pharmacists may not be conscious of the significant effects of EU membership on their daily working lives. So what could it mean for community pharmacy if we were to leave the European Union?

Medicinal products throughout the EU are subject to strict monitoring to ensure their safety (pharmacovigilance). In 2010, an EU directive introduced a strengthened pharmacovigilance regime in the EU, allowing for better information sharing and ultimately, improved patient safety. It is anticipated that in the future drug licensing may become more centralised, through the European Medicines Agency.

This could improve efficiency and potentially bring a product to the market more quickly, something that could be lost if the UK left the EU. Many would say that the directive on the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications was helpful in providing EU pharmacists when there was a shortage in the UK market.

European Union treaties allow for the parallel trade of medicines. Some manufacturers respond to this trade with inflexible quotas that create shortages. Withdrawal from the free market may result in the abolition of quotas, but also an end to parallel imports, which can be helpful to the taxpayer and pharmacy.

Withdrawal from the free market may result in the abolition of quotas, but also an end to parallel imports

The EU directive on falsified medicines aims to tackle the problem of counterfeit medicines. Implementation of this directive should reduce the risk of counterfeit medicines reaching patients, a problem which has been difficult for any one organisation or nation to manage because of the global medicines market. However, the EU may impose unnecessarily prescriptive rules on the way pharmacy handles medicines, reducing efficiency.

The EU also affects pharmacy in ways that are not related to medicines per se, for example, by establishing laws on data protection. So it is clear that any decision to leave the EU would have a significant impact on pharmacy, but with EU law affecting pharmacy in so many ways, it is difficult to predict the overall effect.

Through membership of the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) the National Pharmacy Association works tirelessly at European level for the benefit of UK independent commununity pharmacies. Whatever happens in the EU referendum, decisions in Europe will continue to affect community pharmacy in the UK and the NPA will continue to exert influence at the European level.