The Government has said that it has no plans to allow dispensing doctors to dispense to any patients other than those for whom they are already allowed to dispense.
In a Parliamentary written reply on May 3, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart) told Mr Bob Russell (Lib Dem, Colchester) that only patients who lived more than one mile from the nearest pharmacy in rural areas and those who experienced serious difficulty getting medicines from a pharmacy due to distance or lack of transport could have medicines dispensed by a doctor.
"We have no plans to permit doctors to dispense to other patients," she added.
Mr Russell had asked what choice was open to patients to have prescriptions dispensed by a dispensing doctor and whether the pharmaceutical services regulations would be changed to allow patients living within one mile of a pharmacy to be able to choose to have their prescriptions dispensed by a dispensing doctor.
Recently, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the British Medical Association's General Practice Committee reached agreement on proposals to change the regulations that were expected to resolve conflict between rural pharmacists and doctors, particularly in market towns. These proposals were recently put to the Minister responsible for pharmaceutical services (Lord Philip Hunt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health). The matter remains under discussion between the two committees and the Department of Health.