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Letters to the Editor
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Concessionary fees
Privy Council hurdles
From Mr K. J. Knight, FRPharmS
The Treasurer, Andrew
Gush, has set out the Privy Council’s objections
to the annual concessionary fee proposals for those who have been on the
Register for 50 years or more (PJ, 29 September, p350).
The stumbling block is not age discrimination but the Equality Act 2006
which, in these Orwellian days, is designed to make sure legally that everyone
is treated fairly, equally, without prejudice and anything else that comes
to mind (if I were young again, I would read law not pharmacy). Mr Gush
does not think the letter of the law will disadvantage us but is concerned
that its spirit might do so.
I have sympathy with the concern for those pharmacists who have taken time
off to bring up a family, but the resolution is simple. The concession
should be given to those who first registered 50 years ago or more, and
there has been an appropriate break in their registration.
But the Privy Council has presented another unbelievable hurdle. It is
that it might disadvantage those pharmacists who have registered in another
European Economic Area state because the time practising there would not
count towards the 50 years.
Again the answer is simple. Be brave, do what the French would do and ignore
it.
Kenneth Jack Knight
Crewkerne, Somerset |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal