§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will make a statement on the Clothier report on rural dispensing;
(2) if he will set up a committee to arbitrate between pharmacies that provide a rural service and family practitioners in the same location who wish to take over a considerable proportion of dispensing for their registered patients, in order to prevent further closures of rural pharmacies.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinI and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales intend to set up a special statutory body, to be known as the rural dispensing committee, to regulate arrangements for dispensing NHS prescriptions in rural 145W areas in England and Wales, as recommended by the Clothier committee. We have been concerned that the present arrangements have not always worked in the best interests of the patient or the merical and pharmaceutical professions, and the strong case put to me by the professions, together with the views of interested organisations, has impressed us with the urgent need for greater stability in the arrangements by which patients living in rural areas obtain their medicines.
Pending the establishment of the rural dispensing committee, the medical and pharmaceutical professions are continuing their voluntary "standstill" on changes in dispensing arrangements, with local joint committees to advise on queries arising from the operation of the agreement, helped where necessary by a central joint committee under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Marre.