HC Deb 14 February 1989 vol 147 cc172-3W
Mr. Cousins

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide exemplifications of the total cost of indicative prescriptions budget for general practitioners n each National Health Service region.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

I will be publishing shortly a working paper which discusses arrangements for the introduction of indicative drug budgets.

Mr. Hannam

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he proposes to take to ensure that general practitioner practices accept chronically sick or disabled people on to their registers when cash limited budgets are introduced;

(2) what assessment he has made of the effect of cash-limited budgets for general practitioners upon chronically sick people in the community.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

Practice budgets will be set to reflect the age and tendency to sickness of practice lists to ensure that doctors have no reason at all to refuse patients for financial reasons. In exceptional cases adjustments will be required in respect of individual patients who require more costly treatment. The practice budgets and drug budgets of GPs will therefore have no effect at all on the attractiveness of chronically sick or disabled people as potential patients.