§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether, and in what circumstances, prescription charges are collected by general practitioners personally administering drugs to patients;
(2) whether he will list those drugs on which prescription charges are payable at the retail pharmacy but not when personally administered by the prescribing doctor;
(3) whether he will estimate the annual loss in revenue to the National Health Service caused by the failure of general practitioners to collect prescription charges on personally administered drugs.
§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:Subject to exemptions, prescription charges are payable by patients when obtaining drugs and appliances on prescription from chemists whether for personal administration to them later by the doctor or, more usually, for self administration. Charges are also paid generally where items are supplied by a dispensing doctor. Where a non-dispensing doctor supplies drugs and appliances which he personally administers to patients, no prescription is given to the patient and no charge is payable. NHS payment arrangements provide for dispensing payments to be made to a non-dispensing doctor for the direct supply to patients of certain items personally administered by the doctor; these are vaccines, anaesthetics, injections and certain diagnostic reagents and appliances.