Pharmacists back medicine charge

Pharmacists want a radical overhaul of the system

High Street pharmacists in Scotland have abandoned half a century of opposition to prescription charges.

The Scottish Pharmaceutical Federation will explain the reasons for the change in its stance when giving evidence to Holyrood's health committee.

It will criticise Scottish Socialist leader Colin Fox's bill, which is aimed at abolishing the £6.50 charge.

The MSP said 75,000 patients were going without treatment because they could not afford their medicine.

He introduced a member's bill earlier this year, urging the Scottish Parliament to follow the Welsh Assembly's lead and scrap charges.

'Tax on sick'

The charges were first introduced in 1952 but were abolished in 1965, before being resurrected three years later.

Over the last 50 years pharmacists have maintained their opposition to the charges.

The federation - which represents independent and community chemists - wants to see a radical overhaul of the prescription system.

But it has spoken out against abolition of the charge, arguing that patients who currently pay for their medicine would visit their GPs more often.

Mr Fox said that prescription charges were a "tax on the sick".

He said: "It is only the sick who pay for them. The NHS should be funded out of our general taxes.

It would mean that people like me, who are well able to afford an occasional prescription, will be getting all their treatments free on the NHS James Semple Scottish Pharmaceutical Federation

"Nobody defends the status quo. The system of exemptions seems to be irrational, illogical and acting against the founding principles of the National Health Service."

The SSP leader described the exemption system as "complete nonsense".

He said that MSPs in the Scottish Parliament who are over 60 qualified for free prescriptions as did the wealthy author JK Rowling, who has just had a baby.

However, there are 27,000 people on benefits who do not qualify, he said.

James Semple, chairman of the Scottish Pharmaceutical Federation, said nobody wanted to see people on low incomes being unable to afford prescriptions but complete abolition of charges was a "sledgehammer to crack a nut".

He said: "It would mean that people like me, who are well able to afford an occasional prescription, will be getting all their treatments free on the NHS.

"That will lead to an estimated cost of about £100m a year. That is money which would be much better spent on the sick and the elderly, the very people I would be expecting Colin Fox's party to be looking out for."