The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7355 p782
25 June 2005

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News summary

Responses to prescription charge Bill published

The current system of NHS prescription charging is illogical and unfair. However, consideration needs to be given to the consequences of abolishing charges. So said the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in its response to the Scottish Parliament’s consultation (PDF 470K) on a Bill to abolish prescription charges (PJ, 7 May, p536). The Society added that, so far, it has not seen any evidence of such consideration.

This week, the Scottish Executive published the responses it had received. A number of individual pharmacists and other pharmacy groups have commented, including the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists, the Scottish Palliative Care Pharmacists’ Association and the Scottish Pharmaceutical Federation (PJ, 18 June, p753).

Costs of implementing the Bill are estimated at £46m in lost revenue from charges plus £17–51m from increased demand for prescriptions, a Scottish Parliament briefing paper published this week estimates. This is balanced against £1.5m reduced administration costs plus unquantified savings resulting from reduced non-adherence to medicines.