The Conservative Party has proposed the introduction of a new legal category of repeatable prescription only medicines. Once prescribed by a general medical practitioner, patients would be able to obtain repeats of these medicines from a pharmacy without having to visit the surgery again. However, pharmacists would not be allowed to undertake medicines management.
Speaking at a press conference at the House of Commons on January 5, the Shadow Health Secretary (Dr Liam Fox) said that he wanted to introduce a new category of medicines, known as "prescriptions first". The aim of this was to make life easier for patients, GPs and receptionists by eliminating some of the millions of repeat prescriptions which were currently issued. However, he said that it was not aimed at expanding the role of pharmacists, who would continue to dispense the prescriptions as before.
Dr Fox said that he had in mind that patients would receive some kind of smart card along with the first prescription. This card would contain details of how many repeats were allowed. It could also be used to guard against fraud. The kind of medicines which would be included in the category were those for asthma, hormone replacement therapy and, possibly, the contraceptive pill and some antidepressants. He said that the actual list of medicines would be the subject of discussions between the Government and the medical and pharmaceutical professions.
Dr Fox said that he did want to see pharmacists having prescribing rights, but only in a number of "minor areas", such as his party's proposal for "named pharmacist" prescribing of antipsychotic medication for people with mental illness (PJ, December 18/25, 1999, p969). There was now a generally accepted feeling that pharmacists were underused and pharmacist prescribing was a logical extension of their role now that nurse prescribing was in place, he added.