Commenting on new figures showing a rise of 22.5% in the number of prescription items dispensed by community pharmacies since Labour introduced universal free prescriptions in 2007, Darren Millar AM, Shadow Minister for Health, said:
“It is no surprise that since the introduction of Labour’s freebies for all policy, the number of prescription items dispensed has increased at a faster rate.
“By scrapping prescription charges, even for the very wealthy, Labour has created a culture where medicines have no value, inevitably leading to unnecessary GP visits and wasted medicines.
“Labour’s priorities are wrong. In the Welsh NHS today a millionaire can get paracetamol or athlete’s foot powder for free, yet life-extending cancer treatments continue to be denied to Welsh patients.
“Ed Miliband and Carwyn Jones’ opposite number in the Scottish Labour Party have rightly said free prescriptions are unaffordable.
“At a time when Labour is cutting the NHS budget by half a billion pounds, leading to the downgrading of vital hospital services, a universal free prescriptions policy is utterly unsustainable.
“Welsh Conservatives believe that those who can afford to make a small contribution towards the cost of their prescriptions should be able to so we can reinvest the savings in improving NHS services for all and ending the postcode lottery in access to life-extending cancer treatments.”
Notes:
The number of prescriptions dispensed has risen by 22.5% (equating to 12.4million items) since the universal free prescriptions policy was introduced by Labour in April 2007. 55.2million items were dispensed in 2006/07 compared to 67.6million in 2011/12.
The figures, published this morning, are available online: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/headlines/health2012/121030/?lang=en
Figures published earlier this year showed that Wales has the highest dependence on prescription medicines with an average of 24 dispensed per person per year compared to 18.4 in England and 18.3 in Scotland: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/headlines/health2012/120830/?lang=en
Earlier this month, Ed Miliband said: “I don’t think we’re going to be able to afford to do free prescriptions in... England”
Sharp End, ITV Wales, Thursday 4th October 2012: http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2012-10-04/england-unlikely-to-follow-wales-with-free-prescriptions-miliband/