Pharmacies: Funding

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord raises an important point which I regret I cannot answer. I will have to write to him on that matter. However, for community pharmacy to play the important role in primary care that we expect it to do, it will have to have access to integrated patient records. The confidentiality that surrounds those records is very important.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this is all very well but will the noble Lord confirm that one of the ideas of his department is for doctors to prescribe medicines for a longer period so that fewer trips are made to the pharmacy, thereby compensating for the closure of up to 3,000 pharmacies? However, is he aware that it is estimated that £300 million-worth of medicines are wasted every year? I understand that a third of that is in medicines that are never opened by patients. Surely it is not cost-effective to extend the length of the prescription time because all you will do is add to wastage of medicines.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, there is no intention to extend the prescription time just for the sake of it. But there are many people who have stable long-term conditions, for whom a 90-day prescription period might be appropriate. We are not saying that all prescriptions should be for that length of time but some of them might be.