Page 61 - BHTA 100 years

This was also the year when the Association formed a new partnership with Elwell Insurance. The company took over the running of the Insurance Scheme from Alexander & Alexander. The Council had reviewed the arrangement and decided that a smaller, more focussed brokerage would be more suitable for members’ needs.
In the Orthotics Section, retrospective rebates of commission payments were on the agenda and relating to the orthotics contract from NHS Supplies. It seems that the vast majority of orthotics contractors were opposed to the introduction.
President Ron Kendrew reported on an issue of interest to the Ostomy and Incontinence Manufacturers Section. For 10 years, BSTA had led a campaign to persuade the Department of Health (DoH) to spell out the criteria used to determine whether a new product should be listed on the Drug Tariff by publishing a set of guidelines for industry.
Then, suddenly, the DoH announced that the entire Drug Tariff system was to be reviewed and a new system implemented in a matter of months. BSTA were once again very much part of the discussions, despite a mix-up. Ron Kendrew wrote: “At the meeting where the review announcement was made, an administrative mix up meant that only four trade association members were present. Rather opportunistically, the DoH made it very clear that, in the future, they wished to only deal with this group of four rather than the larger group that had previously attended meetings.”
Although Ron reports that there is “little in the way of speci c policies to which industry should object” he is clearly not fully con dent that this is the end of the matter as he refers to the work done by the Association in the past, adding: “I’m keeping the nal draft of the guidelines document on le. It took 10 years to write and was never published; but I have a feeling that a future BSTA working group might have need of it.”
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