"Resentment" Of UK Prescription Charge

Most UK general practitioners believe that the National Health Service prescription charge, which now stands at L5.25 per item, constitutes a burden for "nearly poor" patients who are on the exemption borderlines, Ross Taylor, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners' prescribing task force, told a meeting last week organized by the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin. Doctors report that such patients, when prescribed a number of products, ask which are the most important as they cannot afford them all, he said.

The government stresses that the prescription charge is not related to the cost of medicines, but is a charge for use of the NHS and acts as a disincentive to overuse of the system for minor complaints. Nevertheless, said Alison Blenkinsopp, director of education and research at Keele University's department of pharmacy policy and practice, patients believe that pharmacists "pocket" the prescription charge, and she quoted Allan Sharpe, the Gwent community pharmacist who triggered the private prescribing row back in the summer by treating NHS prescriptions as private prescriptions when the cost to the patient would be under L5.25, as saying: "It doesn't do any good to the chemist's image in the community if [he/ she] is seen to be collecting excessive taxes for the government." Mr Sharpe's actions, and those of other community pharmacists who have taken the same path, have stirred resentment and avoidance of the charge, said David Dickinson, editor of Health Which?

Cost To NHS Of Private Prescriptions 80%-85% of prescription items are exempt from the charge, as is about 50% of the population, but abolishing the charge altogether would not involve only small numbers of people, said Dr Blenkinsopp. Earlier this month, Health Minister Gerald Malone estimated that if all prescription items costing under L5.25 were dispensed privately, the cost to the NHS would be about L90 million ($140 million). Another government health minister, Baroness Cumberledge, has said that 50% of prescription items cost under L5.25, and that the average cost of each item is L8.80.