§ Miss Lestorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the total take-up of free prescriptions as a percentage of those eligible.
§ Sir K. JosephMany people who are eligible do not need any prescriptions and no reliable estimate can be made of the number of people who during any period both need prescriptions and are eligible for remission of charges. But well over half of all National Health Service prescriptions are dispensed without charge.
From this and all the available indications I am confident that the vast majority of the 23 million people in Great Britain who are exempt on grounds of age or because an exemption document has been issued to them know about their entitlement and declare it when they get a prescription form. This includes Supplementary Benefit order book holders, the recipients of Family Income Supplement and war pensioners under 65, all of whom are sent their exemption certificates automatically; people with specified medical conditions; and pregnant women and nursing mothers. Only about two-thirds of pregnant women submit the applications for exemption which are sent to them; but they do not normally need frequent prescriptions and some may be covered by the overlapping exemptions on financial grounds.
I am concentrating my efforts on the minority of people who need to apply for help on grounds of income; in the six months ended 21st September, 1971 about 60,000 exemption certificates were issued to people who applied for them on these grounds, compared with about 8,000 in the previous six months.