§ 60. Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked if it has been represented that many unregistered druggists trading as store proprietors in different parts of the country who have served regular terms of apprenticeship to registered chemists and druggists, and subsequently by experience gained in having acted for a considerable period of years as dispensing managers or assistants to practising chemists, druggists, apothecaries, and pharmacists, are qualified to dispense medicines, are deprived of the right to do 30 so under the National Insurance Act, either on their own account or as dispensers to persons, firms, or bodies corporate entitled to carry on business as chemists and druggists under the Pharmacy Act; and what, if any, steps are being taken to remedy the disability under which these men suffer?
62 and 63. Major HOPEasked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) if the proprietor of a drug store who has dispensed for the past fifteen years is now debarred from doing so under the National Insurance Act unless he has a registered pharmacist on the premises; and (2) if he is aware that a London house of wholesale chemists has been inundated with applications from dispensers who have had to leave their employment owing to the incidence of the National Insurance Act, asking if they could find them employment as chemists' assistants, and that, in the majority of cases, they have been unable to do so; and, in view of the hardship caused by the Act, can the Commissioners make regulations to allow dispensers of three years standing to go on the panels?
§ Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that no Amendment was introduced on Report to carry out the pledge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that those persons who were qualified to dispense before the Act was passed would not be cut out of the Act?
§ Mr. MASTERMANCertain Amendments were introduced in order to meet that promise, but I think this is more a subject for discussion than for question and answer.
72. Major HOPEasked the Secretary to the Treasury the position as a dispenser under the National Insurance Act of a man who served his apprenticeship to a registered chemist, has dispensed for three years prior to the passing of the Act for a medical man, and has presented the form signed by a medical man to the local insurance committee, but has been told that they cannot give him a certificate to show he is qualified to dispense under the Act; is he aware that chemists refuse to recognise his qualification unless he has either a certificate to show he is a qualified dispenser or some form of registration 31 which would answer the same purpose; and will the Insurance Commissioners take steps to protect his interests and those of men similarly situated?
§ Mr. MASTERMANNeither the Insurance Commissioners nor the insurance committees have any power to give certificates of qualification. The conditions under which medicines may be dispensed for insured persons are laid down in Section 15 (5) of the National Insurance Act.