Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford on 3 July (HL Deb, col 1435), what assessment they have made of the finding of the House of Commons Health Committee in its report NHS Charges (HC815–1), published on 18 July 2006, that the list of exemptions for prescription charges was “inconsistent and anomalous”; and what plans they have, in any future meetings with Asthma UK, to discuss the current list of exemptions for prescription charges in regard to those who have asthma.

The Department has made no formal assessment of the finding of the House of Commons Health Committee in its report NHS Charges (HC815–1), published on 18 July 2006, that the list of exemptions for prescription charges was “inconsistent and anomalous”. The Department has no current plans to review the existing National Health Service prescription charging exemption arrangements.