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Committee

Health Committee, 20 Mar 2007

20 Mar 2007 · S2 · Health Committee

Item of business

Subordinate Legislation

National Health Service<br />(Charges for Drugs and Appliances) (Scotland) Regulations 2007 (SSI 2007/139)

Macdonald, Lewis Lab Aberdeen Central Watch on SPTV

Thank you for the opportunity to address the regulations. To a degree, they appear in a similar form annually. They consolidate and update the regulations of a similar title of 2001, and they include revised charges for prescriptions, wigs, fabric supports and elastic hosiery, in this case to be introduced from 1 April 2007. The present regulations also cover one or two specific additional points. For example, they provide for the introduction of electronic transmission of prescription forms—the e-pharmacy service—which forms part of the process of modernising the service.Members will be aware of the essential numbers that are contained in the regulations. There is a 20p increase in the charge for an individual item on prescription, with increases of £1.20 for a four-month prepayment certificate and of £3.40 for a 12-month prepayment certificate. The headline numbers therefore become £6.85 for an individual item, £98.70 for 12 months prepaid and £35.85 for four months prepaid. Those increases are broadly in line with the approach that has been taken over recent years, which has been to uprate charges in line with, or below, inflation. In these cases, the percentage increase is in line with inflation, at just over 3 per cent for individual items and just under 3.6 per cent for the 12-month certificate. That follows increases in previous years of very similar sums—10p and 15p in successive years.The other main element is the introduction of electronic prescribing, which is reflected in some of the other instruments that the committee has considered today—some of them touch on the same area. The purpose of the amendment that is contained in the regulations is to allow charges to be collected against prescriptions that are transmitted electronically from general practices to community pharmacies. Under the current provisions, the charge can be collected only against paper prescriptions. The change is to allow greater use of electronic prescribing and transmission between the general practitioner and the pharmacist. The final point of note in the regulations is the revised definition of "supplementary prescriber". That is a consequential amendment arising from the implementation of the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 (SI 2007/289), which renames the pharmacists professional register. Charges may be collected only on prescriptions that have been written by a defined prescriber—a doctor, an independent nurse prescriber or a supplementary prescriber.Those are the more technical aspects of the regulations of which the committee will wish to be aware. As I said, there are a number of connections with instruments that the committee has considered and approved today.I acknowledge that committee members will not have had a chance to look in any detail at the document that I thought it useful to let them see this morning. We were keen for it to be available before the end of the session, however, and this was the final opportunity to come before the committee with officials who have detailed knowledge of the subject, so I thought that committee members might appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions.