78 and 79. MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether he is aware that the sum of 6d. per ounce of 480 grains is allowed in the tariff under the National Insurance Act for benzoate of ammonia and that the price of well-known retail chemists in a large way of business is 9d. per ounce of 437.5 grains; and will he explain how chemists in a small way of business can give a supply at this price; and (2) whether he will explain why many articles are priced in the tariff under the National Insurance Act at 20 to 30 per cent. less than the wholesale houses charge retailers?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThere is no "tariff under the National Insurance Act" applicable to every part of the country. Each insurance committee is required by the Regulations to prepare a drug tariff for its own area, and the prices included therein are a matter for negotiation between the insurance committee, the chemists, and the doctors of each area. As a matter of fact the drug tariff usually adopted is one that was drawn up by the Pharmaceutical Society themselves.
MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEAre the qualities issued the same as those under the Insurance Act. tariff?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI have never heard the expression except from the lips of the Noble Lord.
MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEMay I send the right hon. Gentleman the wholesale catalogues of several firms in the country?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe Noble Lord may send them, but I do not think they would cheer me up at all.
80. MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the threat, or possible danger, to Scottish pharmacists which caused the Pharmaceutical Standing Committee (Scotland) to circularise pharmacists in Scotland, advising them to join the panel 700 before 31st December in a letter dated 12th and 13th December, 1912?
§ Mr. MASTERMANNo threat was made or authorised by the Scottish Committee to the Scottish pharmacists. In answer to specific inquiries from the Pharmaceutical Standing Committee (Scotland), the Scottish Commissioners explained to them that it would be their duty to authorise the insurance committee to make arrangements for the supply of medicines to insured persons otherwise than through a panel of chemists, if in any area no adequate panel was formed.
MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEDo I understand that there was a threat that they were going to set up a State chemist's shop?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI do not think that there was any suggestion of setting up a chemist's shop. I think they were informed that it is a duty laid upon them by the Act to provide in sonic form or another medicine for every insured person.
§ 81 and 82. Mr. O'GRADYasked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether he is aware that in Holbeck, Leeds, there are eight chemists' shops to a population of 50,000 inhabitants, and that only two of the proprietors of these shops have the right of dispensing medicines under the National Insurance Act simply because these two proprietors are members of the Pharmaceutical Society; whether he is aware that the other six proprietors of chemists' shops have for years dispensed the prescriptions of qualified medical practitioners, but that under the National Insurance Act this business is taken away from them unless they dispense under the control or supervision of a member of the Pharmaceutical Society; and, having regard to the danger of such a monopoly, will he arrange that qualified, but unregistered, chemists shall be on local panels with the right to dispense doctors' prescriptions not containing scheduled poisons; and (2) whether he is aware that in the Parliamentary Borough of Oldham there is a population of 211,227 and that the number of chemists to dispense prescriptions on the panel under the National Insurance Act is eight resident and twenty-six non-resident, while in the same borough there are thirty-one resident and eleven non-resident drug-store proprietors Who are debarred from being on the panel for dispensing purposes; and whether, in 701 view of the danger to health and life which these figures indicate, he will arrange for drug-store proprietors, whose business it has been and still is to dispense for doctors in private practice, to be members of the local panels to dispense prescriptions not containing scheduled poisons?
§ Mr. MASTERMANAs I stated in reply to a similar question by the hon. Member on the 30th January, it would not be possible to authorise the supply to insured persons of medicines requiring dispensing to be arranged for by other persons than those entitled to make these arrangements under the National Insurance Act. The Commissioners are, however, seeing tomorrow a deputation on this subject.