The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7253 p815
14 June 2003

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Related websites
OFT pharmacy report: articles and links (more)

All party group queries lead on response to OFT

The Government is being challenged by the All-Party Pharmacy Group to explain why the Department for Trade and Industry is leading the response to a report on health regulations.

In a letter to David Lammy, the minister responsible for pharmacy, the APPG chairman Howard Stoate, MP, says that it is the health departments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have responded to the Office of Fair Trading's pharmacy report. "Why therefore is the Department of Health not leading the Government's response?" Dr Stoate asks.

The APPG is clear that health policy, not competition policy, should prevail.

"The interests of patients and primary care trusts must take precedence over the interests of competition theorists and those (relatively few) commercial organisations who seek deregulation," Dr Stoate says.

The letter calls for new contracts to be awarded on the basis of identifiable unmet health needs.