From Mr R. Richardson, MRPharmS
SIR,-I read with some interest your "Broad Spectrum" item (PJ, July 1, p16) regarding the health service in France.
I, too, am retired and have had dealings with the French health service. I feel Peter Clarke did not emphasise enough the massive differences in this and the British National Health Service.
The major points are that, as a patient, you have the right to use any doctor you choose. Doctors place their specialty in the telephone book and on their plaque. Thus, if you feel you have a cardiac problem you look in the telephone book. You do not, as in Britain, go to a general practitioner who may have specialised and have an interest in psychiatry to be told it is all in your mind and "No you cannot see a specialist" - of course, having waited for 10 days for an appointment.
As stated, French doctors do not have masses of staff insulating them from patients and are well into computer technology. However, as pointed out by a French doctor who is a friend: "We do not waste our computers or time as you seem to do in England playing with prescriptions. If a patient needs regular treatment and I want to see them perhaps twice per year they leave me with a six-month supply of prescriptions. I know that the pharmacies will not over-dispense them. So why do I need two or three unqualified people who have to be paid by someone. The computer is best for reference and records."
When the UK Health Minister asked for ways to change the NHS I sent a slightly expanded version of this to him. I received the reply that it is not the intention of this government ever to allow direct access by a patient to a specialist. The GP was the best portal for all entry into NHS services.
Personally, I see nothing wrong in a patient having a prescription for, say, six months. The pharmacy would fill in forms for signing by the patient and rubber stamping by the doctor when a supply was made - no need for expensive technology, and no need for a prescription desk in the surgery. Sorry, perhaps it is contact with common sense people or stupid old age, but when will pharmacists realise what they are really there for? When they do they will perhaps be more able to promote their case.
Roland Richardson
Monte Carlo, Monaco