UPDATE: UK Rx charge stops people taking medicines

UK's Citizens Advice, which operates a network of advice centers for legal and public administration issues to people across the UK, has published a survey which claims that patient compliance with courses of drugs are negatively affected by the level of the National Health Service's prescription charge. The study, carried out by the Mori opinion polling group, found that 2% of 880 people had refused to collect medicines from a pharmacist in order to save money.

David Harker, the chief executive of Citizen's Advice, said: "evidence from our bureaux shows that prescription charges can seriously damage your health and the impact is felt most severely by people on low incomes and with long-term health problems." He proposed that the prescription levy of L6.85 ($13.48) per item should be scrapped in England and Scotland. Previously, the Welsh Assembly has abolished the charge and the Scottish Parliament has announced plans to do so by 2011 (Marketletters passim).

The Department of Health told the UK's public broadcaster, the BBC, that there is no question of scrapping the levy in England, but that changes could be made, provided they do not reduce its overall revenue. A spokeswoman for the DoH said: "prescription charges provide a valuable contribution to the NHS in England, estimated to be L430.0 million for [fiscal year] 2006-2007."