SCRAP Prescription Charges
The weblog of the Scottish Campaign to Remove All Prescription Charges. Keeping you updated on all the news about Colin Fox MSP's bill to the Scottish Parliament.
Friday, January 21, 2005
MSP wants all Scots to get free NHS drugs
Evening Times
A BID to abolish NHS prescription charges was launched today at Holyrood.
Socialist MSP Colin Fox has tabled legislation he claims would benefit 75,000 Scots who are not exempt from charges.
They include sufferers of chronic illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and HIV/Aids.
Mr Fox said the £6.40 prescription charge was a "tax on the sick" and contradicted the original NHS principle of providing free health care at the point of use.
He said: "It is not free at the point of need because if you don't have £6.40 you don't get the treatment.
"That's what's happening to 75,000 Scots every year who don't have the cash and are going without the treatment they need."
Mr Fox said people not exempt from paying for prescriptions included 27,000 receiving benefits allowance and workers on the minimum wage.
He claimed research in the UK, Europe and Canada had consistently shown that charges resulted in patients not taking the treatment they needed because of the cost.
Figures from 2001/2 show prescription charges raised £43million of a total NHS prescription drug bill of £733m.
But Mr Fox argued that the cost of abolishing the charges in lost revenue to the NHS would be much less than £43m a year.
He claimed the NHS would save £20m a year in treatment costs for people who don't take up prescriptions because of the £6.40 charges and end up in hospital.
Mr Fox admitted these savings would be offset by the additional cost of such people taking up free prescriptions, but he insisted that overall it would be less than the bill for hospital stays.
He also said there would be savings of £3m in administration.
His Abolition of Prescription Charges (Scotland) Bill has the backing of 22 MSPs, including Labour's Elaine Smith, and he is urging more Labour MSPs to follow the example of their colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, who have already voted to phase out the charges.
A spokeswoman for the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland said: "We would be delighted if prescription charges for people with chronic conditions were abolished."
