Gateshead & South Tyneside LPC  
  • Maintenance
  • Events
  • Contact Us

Pharmacists to validate Exemptions?

16/1/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
You may have seen in the national news that the DoH intends to launch a “crackdown of prescription charge fraud” with the Government announcing that they hope to gain hundreds of millions of pounds by enforcing the checks on exemption status at the point of dispensing. Their plan is to allow pharmacists to interrogate the benefits system through some kind of electronic link and challenge those who make “false claims” to pay up or face being fined. Rollout date for this system is 2017 apparently.
 
The LPC has seen that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society  has made a public comment on these moves to make pharmacists in England check the benefits status of patients collecting free medicines from their pharmacy if they don’t have their exemption certificate with them, and we reproduce them below as the LPC is in accord with the sentiments expressed:


“This move to make pharmacists police the Government’s unfair charging system is totally unacceptable to us. We are opposed to any move that adds to the bureaucratic burden of pharmacists without improving patient safety in any way.

We are concerned the Government is using provocative language to label those with incurable illnesses such as diabetes as “fraudsters” just because they have forgotten to renew their medical exemption certificate. People need better access to their medicines, not a financial penalty for a minor mistake.

We understand that the IT systems which are being deployed will allow pharmacists to check peoples’ benefit status in the pharmacy. We believe this will disrupt and distort the relationship between pharmacist and patient, impacting on the trust that currently exists and creating a culture of fear and uncertainty when asking for a prescription to be filled.

This new system puts pharmacists in an invidious position where they will be asking patients to pay or risk prosecution. Our job is to put the needs of vulnerable people first and make sure they get the care they need.”

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    News Stream

    This is our News Stream.  Any News stories that appear on our website will be archived here for your convenience in Chronological Order with Catogery  tags to help you find items you are looking for.   

    You can also use our search bar  to find items and our RSS feed on this page to keep informed of news. 

    RSS Feed


    LPC Newsletter Archive

    Copies of our older Paper Based News Letters (The LPC News) can be found by clicking below.

    Picture
    LPC News Letter Archive

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Alert
    Announcement
    Business
    Call To Action
    Campaign
    Category M
    Cd's
    Christmas
    Commisioning
    Concessions
    Consultation
    Contractual
    Controlled Drugs
    Council
    Cpaf
    Cpd
    Delivery
    Diabetes
    Drug Tariff
    Ehc
    Election
    Essential Services
    Event
    Finance
    First Contact Clinical
    Flu
    Funding
    Future
    Gateshead
    Gphc
    Guidance
    Health Checks
    Healthy Living Pharmacy
    HMRC
    Hope Winch
    Info
    Information Governance Ig
    INR
    Inspection
    IT
    Lecture
    Legislation
    Local Policy
    Lpn
    Lrc
    Medicines-management
    Meeting
    Mental Capacity Act
    Mental Health
    Mhra
    Mur
    Needle Exchange
    Nhs
    Nhs Contacts
    NHS Mail
    Nms
    North East Pharmacy Forum
    Palliative Care
    Payments
    Pharmacy Qualifications
    Politics
    Pre - Reg
    Prescription Charge
    Psnc
    Public Health
    Reacll
    Recall
    Resources
    RPS
    RPS Event
    Services
    Sexual Health
    Shared Care
    Smoking Cessation
    Standards
    Structure
    Students
    Substance Misuse
    Sunderland Uni
    Tax
    Training
    Up To Date
    Urgent Care
    Vaping

    RSS Feed

Gateshead & South Tyneside Local Pharmaceutical Committee 2016


Photos used under Creative Commons from USCPSC, GovInslee, NHSE, weisserstier, mjtmail (tiggy), RambergMediaImages, Brett Jordan