Health Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to some extent, but this is anecdotal evidence. One talks to pharmacists and sees young people go into a pharmacy and get products from them that they would not dare to ask of a GP because they or their parents are known in the GP’s area. One only has to think of sexual health and other such matters. I am contributing to this debate because we are talking about dispensing doctors in rural areas. I am drawing a distinction between what dispensing doctors provide and what pharmacists provide. The two are often in conflict. That is a pity, but that is the way we are. I am concerned, and again this comes from personal experience. In my area the GPs decided to go for dispensing, which would have closed our chemist’s. We would have lost a whole range of services because of the local GPs taking that action. When the chemist became very purist and stocked only medicines and things that were to do with ill health, the village rose up and said, "No. We want our toothpaste, soaps and creams back". The pharmacy, which is part of a chain, reacted to that and we got the products back. The GPs wanted to introduce dispensing, despite the fact that the whole village rose up and did not want them to dispense because they recognised what they were losing. The GPs went ahead with an appeal, but people in the village were fantastic about appearing at that appeal and won it by a margin of 80 per cent. I am anxious that, although I understand some of the strengths of dispensing doctors, we do not lose pharmacies as a result of the extraordinary system whereby the rural area is defined by one mile. I ask the Minister to have another look at all this. I know it is a sensitive and difficult subject. One also ought to take into account value for money: when GPs dispense they get more per medicine dispensed than does the pharmacist. They get a grant to set up a new service and an added income of, on average, £127,000 each. GPs are not on the breadline—they have done pretty well out of past contracts. From the Government’s point of view, bearing in mind their expenditure and the financial situation we are in, some of these points need to be addressed, and it takes courage to do that. What are we talking about when we say "rural"? And what are the Minister or her colleagues going to do about some of the anomalies that need to be addressed?