South Herefordshire parliamentary candidate Jesse Norman says the government’s decision to let GPs continue dispensing medicines to patients from their surgeries is fantastic news.
The service was threatened last year when the Pharmacy in England White Paper proposed that, if a pharmacy was within a mile of the main practice surgery, no dispensing could go ahead.
Many rural surgeries run branch surgeries in the smaller villages in the Ross-on-Wye area, and these are especially reliant on income from dispensing.
However, before Christmas, Phil Hope MP, the minister responsible for pharmacy, announced in Parliament that there would be no change to the existing arrangements.
Mr Norman said: “We have been fighting against these plans for over six months now, so it is fantastic news that they have been withdrawn. As with the Post Office Card Account, this is a huge U-turn by the government.
“If the pharmacy proposals had become law, they would have been bad for patient care, and could have been ruinous for rural surgeries in Herefordshire.”
