Prescription charges discussed at Labour conference
Pharmacy bodies hosted a fringe meeting at which prescription
charges were discussed during the Labour party conference in Brighton
this week.
Chaired by Margaret Mythen, chief executive of New
Health Network, the fringe meeting addressed the issue of who should pay
prescription charges.
The Liberal Democrat front bench health spokeswoman,
Sandra Gidley, said that prescription charges, like other National Health
Service charges, were a barrier to equity of access to health care. She
challenged the Government’s commitment to tackling such inequality.
Dr Howard Stoate, chairman of the All Party Pharmacy
Group in Parliament, believed that the issue should be considered broadly.
Prescription, and other service, charges had been introduced as one strategy
to redress the imbalance between supply and demand within the NHS. But
such strategies were now of limited use.
“We need to challenge the way the service is used,
which is why the Government is introducing new structures and approaches
to free up initiatives at a local level.”
Such ideas included the supply of non-prescription
medicines from pharmacies on the NHS; the introduction of medication review
and medicines management to improve the use, and cut waste, of medicines
and the deployment of appropriately trained assistants for health professionals.
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