From Mr R. Underhill, MRPharmS
SIR,—A radical change to the prescription charge would save millions of pounds, which could be used to increase funds to the National Health Service and save community pharmacists the tax-collecting fiasco imposed on us, including two new exemption categories.
In September, my pharmacy branch collected £6,254 in prescription charges. If a £1 charge (mentioned way back) had been collected for every item, that figure would have been £8,461, an increase of over 25 per cent. An adjustment would have to be made for abolishing prepayment certificates.
There would be no fraudulent claims for exemption possible, no cost for teams of checkers trying to locate fraudulent claimants, no postage costs to investigated claimants and for sending wads of literature to pharmacists, no costs of printing stacks of leaflets, literature, expensive folders and film coated sets of explanatory cards with little chains, and no need to pay the pharmacists and their staff £12.5m to waste valuable time overseeing and helping with exemption claims.
The increase in total charges, and money saved doing away with this bureaucratic machine is an enormous amount. How many hip and heart by-pass operations could be funded, for example? I knew of two acquaintances who died waiting for heart surgery; one was told to wait 12 months because he was not a high risk patient. He had paid many thousands of pounds into the NHS and was still paying when he died. Had he paid privately he would probably still be alive, but why should one have to pay extra to get prompt attention - discrimination?
Why do diabetic, epileptic and hypothyroid patients get every item free, when other patients on lifetime medication for various forms of arthritis, cardiac illness, etc, have to pay - discrimination?
Why do war pensioners only get free medication connected with their war disablement - discrimination?
The less than 20 per cent of patients who have to pay, facing amounts of up to £23.60 or more on tight budgets, cannot always afford prepayment certificates. Why should they bear the cost when they are already paying their National Insurance payments - discrimination?
If there are really disadvantaged patients who cannot pay £1 (sometimes for two or three months supply) per item, they should be dealt with by the Department of Social Security not via the pharmacist; we are not DSS officers or tax inspectors.
£1 for everybody is affordable - the problem to resolve is the comparative costs of over-the-counter medication, but I am sure there are enough intelligent people to solve it; after all, we do already have a black list.
R. Underhill
Hedge End, Southampton