§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will consider issuing guidance to doctors and pharmacists on how to deal with particular patients who cannot afford the total prescribed medication.
§ Dr. VaughanI do not consider it appropriate for me to intervene on the clinical aspects of prescribing and dispensing of medicines for individual patients; these are professional matters best left to the judgments of those directly involved. I have no evidence that difficulties of the kind suggested by the hon. Member are such as to warrant further action on my part.
The Government have made a special point of raising the threshold for low income exemption from charges on each occasion the charge has been raised. This has extended the entitlement to exemption from prescription charges to more people. The full range of exemptions means that at present over 63 per cent. of all prescription items are dispensed free of charge by virtue of those exemptions. The prepayment certificate ("season ticket") arrangements, which help people with heavy prescription needs who are not automatically exempt from charges, account for a further 5.5 per cent. of all prescription items.
§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what reply he has sent to the request by the Society of Family Practitioner Committees to have a review of medical exemptions from prescription charges in the light of mounting anomalies.
§ Dr. VaughanI assume that the hon. Member is referring to the resolution which was passed at the sixth annual meeting of the Society of Family Practitioner Committees in the following terms—
That this Conference requests the Secretary of State to consider the re-appraisal of exemptions from prescription charges".We have given consideration to the prescription charge exemption arrangements on a number of occasions. We concluded the the current wide-ranging exemption arrangements were adequate to meet most cases of need. One improvement has, however, been made; on each occasion when the prescription charge has been increased we have raised the qualifying level for low-income exemption, thus extending this form of exemption to more people.
The prepayment certificate—season ticket—arrangements enable those people not entitled to exemption to limit their expenditure on medicines.
A response has gone to the Society of Family Practitioner Committees on these lines.