The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7236 p215
15 February 2003

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Scottish Parliament (www.scottish.parliament.uk)

MSPs want to know who has the power to change contract controls

The Scottish Parliament's Health and Social Services Committee wants swift answers from the Scottish Executive over who has the power to change controls over the award of National Health Service dispensing contracts.

At a meeting of the committee on February 4, Nicola Sturgeon (SNP, Glasgow) said that it was her understanding that the Office of Fair Trading report on the pharmacy market dealt with consumer issues, which came under powers reserved to the Westminster Parliament. But NHS contract controls were a health matter, which meant that they were devolved to the Scottish administration.

The committee's deputy convener Margaret Jamieson said: "From what I have seen of it so far, the OFT has not considered the issue of dispensing NHS prescriptions. It considered the wider issues — some might say that it considered the peripheral issues."

Ms Jamieson confirmed that it is for Scottish ministers to decide what action, if any, to take on contract controls. This meant that a Statutory Instrument would have to be considered by the committee and that it could block an SI.

The committee heard that the Scottish Executive had set itself a deadline of 28 February for the receipt of responses in Scotland to the OFT report.