(de-news.net) – The Bundestag has approved a major pharmacy reform aimed at strengthening pharmacies economically and expanding their role in Germany’s health-care system. While the Federal Government presented the legislation as a response to rural service shortages and administrative inefficiencies, critics raised concerns about costs and the transfer of medical responsibilities to pharmacies.
The first chamber of the German parliament confirmed the Government’s pharmacy reform on Friday, granting the Pharmacy Care Development Act the majority required for passage. The legislation is intended to strengthen the economic position of pharmacies while simultaneously expanding their function within Germany’s public health-care system. According to the government’s rationale, the reform responds to a combination of personnel shortages, structural transformation within the health sector, and declining profitability that has increasingly affected smaller and rural pharmacies in particular. In addition to improving economic conditions for owner-operated establishments, the proposal seeks to reduce regulatory and bureaucratic burdens while making broader use of pharmaceutical expertise already available at the local level, especially in the area of preventive medicine and community-based care.
The law introduces a broad series of regulatory adjustments designed to improve both operational flexibility and the continuity of pharmaceutical services. Requirements governing the establishment of branch pharmacies are to be eased, thereby enabling additional outlets to open in remote or underserved regions where access to medicines has become increasingly limited. More flexible management models are also envisioned under the reform, including arrangements in which branch or satellite pharmacies may be jointly supervised by two individuals through organizational or time-based divisions of responsibility. Furthermore, experienced Pharmaceutical-Technical Assistants (PTAs) will, under specified conditions and with official authorization, be permitted to assume temporary managerial duties in order to maintain pharmacy operations in rural areas facing staffing shortages or operational disruptions.
Reform faced debate over costs and responsibilities
Additional provisions significantly broaden the range of medical and preventive services that pharmacies may provide in the future. Pharmacists are to receive authorization to administer vaccines that are not classified as live vaccines, including immunizations against tetanus and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). Pharmacies and approved care facilities are likewise expected to gain the authority to conduct rapid tests for selected common pathogens. The reform also partially relaxes existing physician-reservation requirements by permitting blood collection procedures within pharmacies. Under certain defined circumstances, prescription medications may furthermore be dispensed without a prior physician-issued prescription, particularly in cases involving ongoing long-term treatment or uncomplicated acute illnesses. Alongside these changes, financial support for emergency pharmacy services is scheduled to increase, with particular emphasis placed on rural regions where continuing pharmacy closures have raised concerns about long-term access to care.
Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) argued that the reform would integrate pharmacies more comprehensively into the broader national health-care infrastructure and thereby strengthen decentralized medical provision. Opposition to the expanded competencies nevertheless emerged from the German Medical Association, which maintained that diagnostic and therapeutic responsibilities should remain restricted to professionally trained physicians. Additional components of the reform package are also aimed at improving pharmacies’ economic stability, most notably through an increase in the fixed reimbursement provided by statutory health insurers to offset operating costs. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds warned, however, that this adjustment alone could impose additional annual costs of approximately 875 million euros on the public insurance system.
Criticism was also voiced by opposition parties during the parliamentary debate. Paula Piechotta (Greens) argued that the reform would place multibillion-euro burdens on the social welfare system, while Ateş Gürpinar (Left Party) criticized what he described as inconsistency and repeated policy reversals within the health sector. By contrast, Martin Sichert (AfD) contended that the planned increases in pharmacy compensation did not go far enough and called for substantially higher remuneration levels.
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